content
stringlengths 7
2.61M
|
|---|
Category of Moral Judgment and Attitudes towards Amnesty and the Nixon Pardon The relationship of assessed category of moral judgment to subjects' attitudes on two socially-relevant moral issues was examined. Using Hogan's Survey of Ethical Attitudes (SEA), the philosophy of moral rationalism was found to be related to positive attitudes towards the pardon of Nixon and negative attitudes towards amnesty for draft evaders. It was argued that these results support an interpretation of the SEA as primarily a measure of political and social preferences rather than as a scale of moral judgment. |
/* Logger GID's can be used by watchers to put logs back into strict order
*/
static uint64_t logger_get_gid(void) {
static uint64_t logger_gid = 0;
#ifdef HAVE_GCC_64ATOMICS
return __sync_add_and_fetch(&logger_gid, 1);
#elif defined(__sun)
return atomic_inc_64_nv(&logger_gid);
#else
mutex_lock(&logger_atomics_mutex);
uint64_t res = ++logger_gid;
mutex_unlock(&logger_atomics_mutex);
return res;
#endif
} |
<reponame>comprakt/comprakt-fuzz-tests
class R4TfdHe0_ {
public static void xy8Hjff7Vd (String[] O9) throws gj6G {
void[][] joOWilyGiUTsE5;
{
if ( this.f()) while ( hAH9S.KTs) {
{
boolean DJYjtamzOmm6xd;
}
}
while ( false.jPjzrLJEaTO3) ;
while ( !xXv()[ -true.WFYTIp1B8Uue()]) null.sP;
!!!!-new B1sdW().Kr();
boolean[][] dvyvt84;
{
void[][][][][][] _Wf20qKqT1bRog;
}
while ( --new h6a_i().VlfBkF9zNZi()) while ( -!!-!!mPPlcu8NuhWO().vX0StpSuQec7()) ;
;
return;
int[] YDZUV_n;
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int CNkWh1WUKV_C = -HZ4x4[ !false.jM07p4()] = --!!!null.J6m7dXDwmIDwU();
{
void[] TT;
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P UZi5;
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null.Sf6qzt2y;
Q8V3vFH orBKt;
void Euu1lIz;
if ( !new void[ --!!!!---28.V2l7NX50].JNPvXN) {
{
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{
;
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int m1;
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-( !--!-null.jtBDmezJHX9Vmu()).ba5SznNb33xdC();
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void[] ZzPi5w_DBQ;
boolean lntD;
;
boolean r1RNtebdcdO = ( null.UC9RD_rwgd).ZEviHympaaq6uH();
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void[][] r9BrcqMT;
{
while ( !!pjr[ -this.oo7gG9gA6JU]) ( -VUHwoX2.H)[ --705477[ F7ZHmBdr()[ !!!new DXDd4()[ !-new int[ -!!true.PX8()].XKkKlYEXOihj]]]];
;
void t5ZY4_JK;
int[][] ExmG7vHR;
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;
while ( --null[ true[ !580517[ -!!!--new OhKMbny().AXgGdOTb]]]) !---new int[ !!new UWz()[ chELoS()[ -new h_zPU8pxK().ccdqK()]]].SlQ9VKtaDhwEV;
;
int[][] YiJ3hRDv0r_b;
;
}
return;
new s9InoBFvH()[ 5675.FRZNccBPi1];
void OS0pM_dXB;
boolean GVHbpNo;
void[][][][][][][] sD7aza = !!!!EKU1S()[ -!-new Ijvo()[ !new G88().s9oDaC()]] = new int[ this.qgtkHvJMBhvsd].mA;
void bxZIDWONNua7U;
void AZfjldsOrAJw9p = ( -!!-!new aTb1Iq7().AOtIexhO2Wd).D7yx1LWnPe7X();
boolean Jur;
;
boolean[][] ubx7Rr8mIwqX;
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public static void bxeUsCpJ4 (String[] N) throws zInak1 {
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if ( h.hOE83()) true.eFQLHToDA2vtAo();else ;
!!this.gk9rh2r;
void[] WzEKqP2sxR = -583.acai();
boolean[][][] W1ekt = ( false[ -!Kjl_Rh46556[ ---!-( 4.Q7).hYcS()]]).o8x__EmNlrR;
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public void ElMvxTRM;
public static void psk (String[] BYqYu7lYC) {
{
while ( k7Oa9zI().sGXu4) ;
;
int YslRx65G7P;
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void[][] ap1sgIAzQbW;
i.amdOf;
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NFkUrFfWAQ o3V7IFR0XnaG;
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-8998.W9Ik;
int[][][][][] ixRsA2 = !!!new X6oJgu8()[ VR()[ !null.Xu9Ih2pz4gOGr()]] = !true[ !false[ -( true[ !LUrz6bf0U()[ !true.s9()]])[ o().UP()]]];
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void ye1oPPWNzZ3f0 = n().yWYOtk() = null.azHQttaFOa;
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}
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}
class _nMYV2LD_r2yl {
}
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public boolean[][][] ZYScXn;
public boolean[][] s;
public boolean[][][] UwXAs9PrlZyL2;
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{
JN6JSPsK[] wF;
void[] EEB4nTw;
void[][][] P8hj;
int[] xRhU;
Yx1shqy ld;
return;
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void[][] R9bVMr;
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void[] Csx;
boolean[] r8;
true.PCAwgeeE0r_lH();
return;
void[][] YMuBae63 = --this[ ( true.jjjUh0lnv0TEEW()).bKb3v];
boolean CP04zkjHq3Bofq = this.lKw6() = fc.P();
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;
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return;
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{
!( 5.Fokuj)[ Z8Rr3E94f().owXZQt2C9U()];
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!new int[ !-this.H][ -false[ !!( null.wETR).uU7S6()]];
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null.O98();
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vsvma0yXUsv8a[][] ibpyr;
{
boolean[] JiDEuOEwzVXm4;
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null.ySBgyqk();
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sT obIa_o;
int[][][][] CmdSynX;
{
boolean[] YYTvCOVx00c;
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int r46zQJYKF;
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public static void HBu_N (String[] v_SV3Fty) throws sEuGDHW {
{
if ( null.J4jYb1LD9sdLuF) while ( -!!true[ -3309830[ -IaScVqdy1x0c().WaKTSUv4X()]]) ;
;
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boolean l7;
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boolean aUvnhB;
;
;
{
{
{
boolean DPJ;
}
}
}
fYOGf0EonSW[] PlBaKHRZw1idz;
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{
void[][] fwN;
}
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boolean vctzaHEb;
boolean YqU5UeEw6;
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j[][] LIX;
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lZZ3lpvabCyUyu().m2R4nYYIe;
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!this.eLGNEkARMl();
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{
boolean[] FA94iHzTnFAoK;
boolean Meljeq1J;
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{
Ynhulbu08QJGY[] EOf_UCUoPK4isd;
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boolean K9AKpg5_Ih;
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boolean F1f0xpFm;
pSF6pIjiP02D McPlnYE7;
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new MSVnInU16z()[ --new void[ new lWK98MCPnC5a().ccqr9vwIkY40OX].ntEa9xTTD()];
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return;
return new XIL().A;
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int DAtisxoXo65_q;
{
void c4lUOnGpeq6ST0;
--true.CIAKK;
false[ this[ -new boolean[ ZJ9NqoH()[ false.nhq0]].C66mDOUukZQvC()]];
boolean[][][] p;
!this[ -true.Gc6mH6pXzyo];
VMt8Ga_j[][][][] XQJYaSMgO7;
;
}
boolean[][] QnHx74m;
void Dp8vE2XyDCa = -this.M1chK77Wl8vy();
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;
void FzS3Ngh = !!!a2TRknLybfH.CAJUyU1kop();
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public void Poul3eS9nv;
public static void K_WX3sW (String[] iYkSa_mvFAkVon) {
void[][] Ag7bcyMFCZU1 = new IkZEIXkF().a();
boolean InHC3M5;
int t_ReZVm7a;
void[] N_ys4lM4xeA8 = null.Wi() = !true.dpLC();
boolean aIi = null.UGzDkO;
void[][] eXsM4AtCt5G = !!-this.pmZcx7f;
return new void[ !-null[ !false.bex6qvwCZKTHqG()]].ageufWw1ZI10;
return 1[ new void[ --( -null.ptEq1sJw).c7].EUJYra4b3];
;
void[][] KNFMYDuhiBsIz = ----XujEGp0LFuF().lEqP;
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while ( !-4244324[ !UUggpoSZ[ ( 32456[ !-!dA2oV().Dxbey()]).YdjsWKM]]) {
return;
}
if ( ( new TIvKojg3eNWc7z().hbm_())[ new voLkuuNJTVFs().sFA5u4Zts()]) while ( -!null.w) return;else {
return;
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WzH4[] y;
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boolean[][] U1;
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{
return;
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;
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return;
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jNF9TKjXrnYHvs Rj6z51I6C4WT = !!P6gCrBTQNxmIB().e0K();
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;
void WjQkpEsVvXeu;
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}
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class QI0xBWTPTmgFTd {
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void[][][][] scgseie6X4;
while ( 5406046[ !-eJjn7Pvv6KCFv.ONN()]) return;
boolean[][] mor_8 = this.YvY = false.KfuJvU();
return;
false.HaKJ893;
int[] tnFP7TNXgbjVt = !-RIYoo3ivar()[ !false.Kdw];
-xL7k.bE97eSf();
boolean[][][][][][] JgCCL1;
Tpxw1oz6bto_ T82tCfj;
void CRd6BuHi;
void[][] IRC36Zp = R4PFDD.voZteQS9rOTq_E();
void[][][][][] X_ = this.X8JwmZbZKEqdg3 = --!true[ -null.KK8XzyscP];
}
public static void QJD6 (String[] pVpwnolHJXsY) {
boolean[] g_ZmxVs6ZDiR = !-!gUgdeiXG1mRYeG.Dm() = !!-!65.yJAWnZ4U033K;
;
{
while ( EKDGczpVJ[ 5[ new int[ new boolean[ this[ !this.UQoeqHx9]][ --!!G_[ ( ( !---this.mXz()).F()).p()]]].uS4cdg_BEU()]]) return;
while ( ----( --false.hHTUmC3())[ !---!-!Y8x_T.lUWP]) if ( null.fK()) {
return;
}
;
boolean oS5MT;
W[ -!new Y_oIQq()[ -!new boolean[ null.o073fdA9zjbQ].XdD5()]];
boolean wfKPw71zWHWp3S;
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}
public void[][][] RvmP7b;
public DYp4ikMt[][] foKaXv3VZ (LmIZkuIi ECe, void[][][][] RzMkSgC6J44b, void[] F3tmY, int[] b9I, void[] M9dmk5) throws jAEiFh4VtI {
if ( -new gMH8b6A2XGTl().wnqCcrN) null.IYhy5f;
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int[][][][][] JyUiv3c9_0wb = 750.F3B1UO_heT();
DXJRvn[] y8fxYbuQ = !!!!!--!--tXojD4N[ -75[ null.cD()]] = new VjJUdKBb5bcl().vj;
-false.skV();
new D_QHw4oVSAGcr()[ BKJwT.TiT99()];
{
boolean[][] bw67qdREyij3a;
return;
uAagWWMScC mzeX26;
}
this.sQ1G8r9AXxXQN();
void ALwAfeSujjWyd;
while ( !l1glDx7S().f2wXKXKTrpu()) new fFAuHAI2rFQ0()[ null.E];
return !-this[ !!--null.e_nPHzv0Gsb];
if ( new int[ !GgvcK.yYF].f64XZXq5) {
int kExI1fcm;
}else return;
boolean[][][][] _YZcv7 = !--true.Pz() = -new H7bh().vYxbxZcerqsMl();
while ( --!this.LrWn0kgy88()) if ( !-new boolean[ true.PjI].WQi9DO3o()) while ( !!new zqSJL[ this.Dd9my].Ro4) return;
{
;
while ( this.MBtkmJC) ;
while ( new ABWBycBTwaxr9K().ZehMOsd()) if ( null.OVq()) ;
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boolean[] c9_oUx5;
;
IV().Q;
int[] NN9Z;
if ( ( new int[ true[ MZUMbWAiYBv.uR]]._V7av())[ --this.ljRN2rxCM]) return;
return;
HsntEJZL[][][][][][] Z3surKXdsC25g;
void KAlRwySnE;
}
int Y;
boolean[] KFOM = !y()[ ( -!--!!--820202[ this.aps4NbA()])[ false.F()]];
L7dSQHU8 iA;
while ( -false.ge()) ;
}
public int iIjFGDlt () throws WcsZijrl {
boolean[] iPfTaQWvYn = --new void[ QGjkHqH().LeAsrr3ZLQlNbB()].cgcjMkVV1IS = null[ ( zL9W[ !new z4Jsm_V8().MoM5()])[ -null.hkAikqowdHc3ye()]];
int oPeV3vaqDG9;
int J4reZl5Z;
while ( ---new P06Y9().ZsR2t_) ;
void[] p3;
int[] PR0R = !!( !sHEvUa[ false[ !null[ true.kFqXQH6v]]]).XTv5Fl() = !new Wb[ false.FOy9a].daKaUexnCLrk4;
while ( new NJtGKVy5k6e3()[ new I().cLRuvOHOO9a13W]) while ( new bp0o()[ -!!3154327[ s_2GHQal[ --H.QyDMjA_()]]]) ;
void zFMIAG6T7hE = !G()[ !-ugHjBiq2[ !Bs().X()]];
if ( -this.Ry2F0VTvy) if ( this[ false.cyK2SF_4f]) {
boolean mb0;
}
}
public static void gzcjrDzRU7KzL (String[] gcm_OuN1bUWZaY) {
m _SZI4hMR_dBY9;
null.Qgd5rfQpYggrqC();
boolean[] IsE;
boolean qtACquAr0YFB8 = !!this[ --new boolean[ !!true.x].w_XYuK6BU75zvp()] = -!-!-new hXaQMsXVnLzn()[ --!!!!3.gVwp8P()];
}
}
class FyrIPSd {
}
class nM6IZlPQ_3N53 {
public int[] m;
public void ggSj1;
public int f3pd8YzHBNzgLJ;
public void qDim78ErbgH;
public void AZ4tHqEAfIJzdg;
public int[] Zr7NlPRwWwcGo8;
public static void fbYFTTPcit (String[] wriCvtSiXhRhYT) {
boolean[][][] QVInC97HZHvW;
while ( -( !!-false[ new dDS().II()])[ !-!-null.Phe()]) if ( !new ht6[ cxQbp3YE0RcgR().Mf][ this[ !788595.VWv0wnwy8]]) if ( ( lcCzey.VrpxuGN).gmFV9ya7hT()) return;
true.SmGaMcp();
if ( this[ ( !( !!---4[ !null.Skrheux28]).sHeUdpdRdkySfg()).Ah13lS9W1Gm]) return;
boolean YIDQPk6fZlB = ( new KkCnV1_N1m()[ 8.ymZGkkHRgTbkYB()]).F;
while ( !h1yPRS()[ --!new void[ ( !( !this.H5LdCHWkc()).QBcHcRJjG()).boy9RCfmyYMIP()].RZ17rrt_hs()]) -new YvI0vegp()[ new void[ null.zQC5gY].s9c3T1S1Vv()];
boolean SeL = I9aQSdnb5MZ5().C = ( -908504473.Y4).Aqw();
boolean Rj = -!new int[ --!this.Bs4xS8mi()].grnj6lkUc1AO;
while ( new eknVD().wi_6Nmb) 399.IZWiBS4A();
void otRvo;
rRl F5Rgti0MDC;
void Kev2BQ;
if ( -false.dka0V4fr) while ( new i()[ -this.pPDnUNBpg()]) if ( --KmU().V5cH1MqIHp51F()) yvH.hm7GrNgP();
void Fs;
new GN().HHPGIb4Jh;
return;
}
public static void IwI1rzX (String[] UXXsTO_Oe) throws Xg47Yk7djtHW_M {
-this.XBS6j();
}
public static void A6X_HO0xh (String[] os) throws uuY0yZI {
return;
void[] brefI2 = null[ tA8jnw_jQhox[ -new oe95[ this.rw()].Yt7tELhCBksxyh()]];
return;
960413412.Mwksxk1;
if ( -gTXr().pXHvWr2) {
int[] WMOECHJ8;
}else while ( true.NB) ;
if ( null[ false.DLoMSZhs8sG]) ;else ;
iG().Zwqoc();
!suuj[ new cdO7hwCNn().VjOowjzwbrZyWx()];
return new zePegvPWbIt().A();
while ( -this.pxFzNBcze01AM3()) return;
if ( 0231878[ MizyInlkfplfKM().jyhLqo()]) if ( false.y()) while ( --this[ !!-CpYFScG9edCxfH().LXVqJs]) while ( gl0iU[ new int[ PqxG()[ -!this[ true[ 39817.KLPZHcAyx17MJ()]]]][ -!--!KOzM64knSpkiN()[ --!eNKH5mDMv2V().Xg()]]]) return;else return;
cVtoVb41fBf[] WAsomga;
return new leWyE9c7BEU()[ !false.HCPTWNW()];
boolean rlBmsjwU3;
{
;
boolean ODo0SV;
;
while ( --this.UcerWNYghG()) {
void[][] u1;
}
return;
QQZmDxlbKFxp[][] MSOJLYNlikre6j;
if ( false.etPbMCYQ) while ( true[ 2[ ---( -!!new int[ !!--!-null.YEe4()].mJC54PR0()).ILnx()]]) if ( !oUcF8kg1Xsn[ null[ new int[ null.ZzeioB48en()][ 831114116.IRZzLYT3UC0x]]]) {
boolean C2ZQa3ZU7tXb;
}
i[] FYe;
int f9;
return;
boolean KCdb0MGM;
int[][][][][] NPL2CoMTyPw;
void[] H7KqS;
Qu5KAibVNeh3e3 rF;
void lTB;
;
{
boolean uOxmzSP8Mgo;
}
UlD[][][] RuG2jAopncMJa;
}
{
boolean[][] FEVCYHjrcN;
int NsvQkdFFBY77Lw;
int[] x9iWze9ZI0q;
boolean rRqA;
return;
{
if ( -!--this[ !-FFsB3M.Q7j9VWbR]) if ( !!( -!this.CU1S1)[ new void[ -!new E5AC().yTAYlcvl].SiCF9ok9Qk0w()]) new KHncwW3J0Ol().OvL();
}
if ( -!GkGD4YKy4Kddm.uFofk) {
void MGk6xknav;
}
int VF;
BT LNP80ncL;
qm1It[][][] aUsGXbmSnUDc;
return;
}
;
}
public static void nm4g (String[] Q) throws l6 {
void QrD30dGfyn4 = -!( -!iQDG6NYOR.zuK2Jd)[ -!-!null.yn7Xivx()] = fuU7e.tKIcz();
int BTRHr3t6 = !-this.pmIZlC() = !-!-!new zyh[ ---this[ 3.jB1rO]].M8G59pzwMOexT;
GB0o88juxXwk ze = !this.gIG5 = !new void[ sTeN[ !null.jeBTiv_ZM]][ !AKHH().zx_()];
gZbx[][] Gh2 = null[ -!!this[ WQ26.MP4R7RfPVBm0]] = ( --!true.O3kneVtfo).c;
while ( false.X) ;
fKgq7 KfE_Zk9 = H_k3wC0cl[ !77223[ -!!!--this.q5F]];
int[][] Y8cFKee = ---!this.IhdAjlcn;
if ( !( gejSExTPsmmHO.pADxRytACxTKgK).Jk3()) -new void[ !!this[ true[ true.kMFPAne9EC]]].K2rctQWfsm();
-this[ this[ new tYFAhsRN().PBvrt]];
int[][] Frna87ZXs = ( ( Ipl()[ 828556.wDDYw2ywFKP4q()]).IWy32_1MPBSBtS()).bPi() = !!!!new RNT_A[ new void[ new int[ -this.K8kb5xQi_DqyTu()][ true[ !-!eCl3yoIOFkw[ this.Yj]]]].rmQ4Cyche3gZ()][ deQTzrx58qw().AeIAWXmH];
void y_dXLikXL_rt = 02461.OmSTWFtBTloHx;
br4ytGKtF NX = false.u;
if ( true[ -new QzhxEX().sRFinpj()]) return;
fmu[] E = this.zBrHP2tta();
void[] VA;
pnWCZI3WrnMA[] UZ3StjAhv;
}
public static void CSy (String[] u) throws _FoTWBlktO0 {
boolean HqZWPqJfy;
void[][][][][][] rM;
;
{
{
if ( true.Qo9uOaF6ZGevSf) while ( new xIElJAqgPUL1Pv()[ 7424[ !--fjKLEGgJB.hca79Dn4J3bTt()]]) return;
}
return;
}
if ( --jmCvtiNthOn6KP.rw()) {
boolean y;
}else if ( -!Nsb().PQwAuht) false[ --!( -!dflG.ThM3B).iGNqtreHI5e()];
Ks[][][] DQV4Wot = !true[ 212556083.nQSd1i41RUOap()] = !!-!new sxL[ new p().w_S].d_();
int[][] eYGjNS3wn = jrNwhUHCI[ this[ null[ q7yC3HeYP.jNDww0cvZAMibm()]]] = true.auBcjwU8WlabtQ();
{
boolean Xb_71;
return;
{
if ( 24678[ !--( !true[ ( !-( null.qFh0nhIlPnBc()).a)[ DGgMJzyhXXs().i70J4HmQb]]).WhU()]) !-new int[ !--null.oMuHQG4761].Jbv();
}
{
int R;
}
int e;
return;
{
;
}
;
if ( -( -true.pwY0sO())[ null[ Otvv5z5cWtEW[ 1652034[ true.MqZJVp5wOYz()]]]]) while ( cMR[ !!new PZPrmzyd()[ 4066089.RhHEVA]]) {
while ( !-true[ --4135876.i()]) if ( -!this.qmL0pCDUqyJaj()) !--!895342218.BPXW4();
}
int[] msQ6HfnSPKV;
if ( -N6wGmz7.P6ZOK3EeL()) ;
Ynv6EqwVlqxRx Gziu_t;
boolean Rwmw_;
{
teH4iJOMeKJ[] ZubQ5_EXAkZ8z;
}
void[] b5wHe;
if ( !new ElH5[ yruj().HTNo].PXUArza53()) while ( 6681783.rqvkhdKpM) {
;
}
while ( w9().czTvuZ_OC1mzj1) {
void nlR;
}
}
{
int bFT;
int[] s79QV62AH;
int[][] LlKPEYFMaBA2o;
boolean tYwnguT;
void[] RQ_IX08;
{
void[] ro0mFMe;
}
if ( !!-this.oR7U7w3GcJ7) if ( --false[ -!-!( --( 13454.Vm0())[ -!new l9vhqmGVS().HGM6IiHS()]).i()]) return;
int fXRpBjsQ_ky;
}
int B;
void[] _ZCUYRSgU5JjeR;
while ( !!-5.x2P44l) aDQ[ 89.Cy()];
if ( --( !--new zHSBhf().DUNFYs).gwSDki()) null.XgQwqWQ;
int[] Z7ueZsO1arCE = 78608185.FWr962AYW0Z = null[ null.o()];
}
public boolean N2SVLlHHguV;
public boolean[] XS44u8P () {
if ( new daBG8RN9U2ORt().RcouwF1Ct) return;
OV[][][] _htYvuURT = !new ykvWheFN()[ !!new D()[ -!!new uQ0a6zlf().QgDJOpHH]] = true.op2lmmwGOnW();
int[] Z = !mfn5Py9ER2edI.Pi() = false[ 4109[ false.fhS]];
funleT_f8G ka3Qc;
boolean[][][][] l9SJda;
if ( new tYNP0D5tI().kQS5Xs8vSn) return;
{
int BY;
int qNpm7L;
while ( null.Q()) while ( --!!-ZjKKD3wrpxcCU.TK) return;
{
if ( null.uIZd49H) {
void[] p;
}
}
}
;
if ( null.pucyQO6oqM()) while ( !-!( this.fIJReZ).fU()) if ( ( --false[ ( !!( !-new q()[ !!!this.J6Ezp]).Y9YLbSg6HT2n).RLxf7OkcAjCDP3()]).Z_2X6KC5) return;
while ( new int[ this.E7d()][ -!!new n2MIXCJSsP().tZbaClmy4tQ]) -!new void[ new void[ new int[ null[ !!!!false.zaL66Zcy5NN()]].W_sr()].GvmHukuv5byiF].xtOO79mX();
if ( !-!-( 6.gta2XIjian).h0hvYFofil7jq) return;else !true[ true[ !--2448835.FfeUnqiZAfqND]];
return -!-!n0FoE()[ new KpBZXajP().Z];
int dFertNDLwHy;
if ( !!!new uT0c9cImSlEP()[ new ixtygZ308iCUam().rBHtxqR]) {
HT38nhoKC8FnG d483KQLKQXhp;
}
tnBqhoNen q3BHbom1JvIUSQ;
int QzEYADa0 = _nC[ !!---null.h7ymNftT82Geb] = 6581.CK();
while ( 8731773.MTz()) return;
if ( ( -true.LDBgYbItcZ)[ 38.pfVLk8fLR40R3()]) ;else while ( new zO7sNzhFwQU()[ true.vJAfoEVr2Ol()]) return;
_nra1jPlqJpBW U = EAYEc._saa() = m6().kX39OIQ3();
}
}
class AVDEG {
public boolean x_HO_A4JNQ8Jm (K Oqm3, iC83W xud0sSkZ_1c, Bpxd3H[] eJEx_ZnbsbrKDm, void[] CsD, boolean[] hjukW4YHb) throws ibB34 {
{
;
s[] L;
while ( !!JUZB4x8fi.yk4G_()) while ( !---true.jyyHBj9jUHQ8l) false.Dqgv_CnBk();
-( -!true[ !--!true.lQ_Oh]).eZ1xBfngLjb7zA;
-false.PX();
if ( ( new CLBl1pV().TTNrnp7b).qIS0MQhXpoN0) ;
!-( -Z6.T2NLEPa_iFWzRF).M6Hdu;
}
Jv0oN[][][] AAy9EJ2Ub8kIb = !this.mJd() = !false.GHf;
-XDZ[ !!-null.luHzuCES7Wl];
}
public void[][] JAf3xoQk42lZl;
public int[] z;
public int oK2C0T9ls;
public void T;
public static void L4Pu03XtGWnfHB (String[] DCunwLT8OoF) throws tIH7P {
boolean[][][][] Sy = !true.Fogxt5i = ( 1.irn8vG())[ !34737[ !!--null[ --new boolean[ -!!-!726527810[ new nZp4Fr()[ false.YUvDUsRJ()]]].Foo4jV00D64liX()]]];
int[][][][][] qUM = null.gZXFBkkJn;
void R6yGo = --356553.H = RDbLqm78G[ false.v_Iwkx];
return;
K _pCiAj3bw7hjl;
uFhJK LcITJKd0I5AW;
boolean TwUEV;
void[] S = Ld.Lh0F = null[ !!( --t().SMLOT)[ !false.d()]];
return;
void N3V = 2538.aXF4uM9ECPZ;
l9JQz9Sf GfSn;
if ( new int[ --false.gFwWwEFBB()].c4u) v5AITxJ7PsrrGm().slBo;
}
public static void GIl5ti2_PDH (String[] ntgGHTsqiA) {
boolean qI5_aM;
boolean DcGOz = -null.aHZCGm;
int K;
{
boolean lTgZO1uhAbBsvN;
{
EQ1RS2tR[][] kYljN5FnkDJZ;
}
wphKAHx[] QM5GO;
if ( JNIK().EL) while ( ( new int[ null[ false.XgC5alEyI()]].JHHq()).GwxgT) return;
void Xj3t2p042yBp;
B8sKJzFA1aPVG nxcZ5;
return;
;
int[][][][] qtevTqg8RFTL;
while ( true[ g1VjwABF.dCUAn9m3]) return;
int[][][] skZ_y9s;
W s;
{
int FI2z1JuZr6B;
}
boolean[] HuJ;
Nczeel2Yn[][][][] hlDKKHt;
if ( --!-!!186357352.x) if ( --EAP()[ --07878688.nMxL7()]) {
mWxUz tIXvCNQm87;
}
int[] Tzc7h;
}
X[] frLGA = !true.Qj7UVUYGqS = -FnedMV5zVO9OH[ true.TOuGFmxp];
w6K[][] vSQiRT_Nnf = -!!!!new iJesSfTGKbNfmO().teCSBx4FSt7ToF = this.v4JH_jeNXwLU();
void CdR = -new Fq[ -!( -( false.da95EtVn0U5SmA())[ 215421[ false.MKn6FW8IJ4]])[ new nwwXMTgF4sbuD().tEfBst9kXlRK()]].rzD2iX = --RUGHwCS.rBQR08QDIxRQl();
}
public void ONmOc;
public void J (boolean[][][] W) throws koSuzs1csdKi {
new ahsr5jf2PH3()[ new hubaBM7t()[ true[ this.tU2b]]];
void[] DJu = !nilTxYHjkw71().fN;
return;
void udj1VHjXc;
boolean[] hGrJC = --( ( new V9o8KPz().YFfR9L()).DNYq_SsDX9())[ -new dF2MNtL191FV1[ -!!97159[ -this.d3XWfZAHj]].kN0Prnsi2Qu()];
void[] GZxxodZ4H6T = !false.BU() = new void[ ( !this.GQX2VirP1()).srK()][ -true.Cs];
int VuUjoTxD = true.ay3d();
if ( !( -Tj.lC3FSpB9bbX())[ nRlu0Ji6().NrEKzzgpy()]) ;else {
Ss7uda[][][][] Dc6ZLYQx;
}
int[] pZQZGV;
}
public int F;
public int yUi68RuTMkCWV;
public uUZHu6I5qUK Z (void HB19M, yKBofsgMFgiyb[][] aMWtqB, int g732CnrpK, boolean aPaGMRs, O[][][][][] ILe, void[] pC2Ysi6aN) {
int[][][][] nCArH = !zdar66gC().r4HckMj = 809.V;
return -!!-48[ !new PDZ5fx().hJX4Dw35iV7YZy];
if ( -new boolean[ null.MVn1bQga7].W1LqqcRP) if ( -( new n().iyrP3iKM).BlK()) ;
return ( Rpw().Fs())[ --!88295.N_tHS9rmqaePFf];
if ( --E2.gZH31zKuwD0SK) ;else rTTjRFmr()[ false.f6JM9x];
this.XO();
int HFe4fNUYsnRiti;
int IZr5oCt;
{
if ( !!null.YusKfn8) return;
void[][] A8AGjn;
H6eQeXl[][] rd91LNNt;
boolean klVUZapuWH;
while ( ( -false[ new boolean[ -true.M][ -eUO2z().YA6JCEplTJn_7q()]]).hdBo2Q) QZZruxdo168Cv.NSJV_OHkF();
return;
return;
return;
;
boolean[][] J_UsPi0Hs;
AGFuoGAuh[][] uvT;
int[] hvng;
void[] msAINxdJU;
oJOsUY[] o1PG8lEstSqo;
}
{
void[][][] F8dXblLF;
if ( -!m6wz9ThnS.mWFwvaaq) {
!!true.fjTOwNN();
}
return;
int[][] KPBhMv8O_8uW;
void[][][] maoAwU5kbJ21;
return;
int toRvlthhWt5fvg;
while ( !-251851372.UN4jcZ()) ;
boolean[][][] qS0lDErj2z;
if ( -rnAKzF4S2b[ true[ null[ false.cDy6fN_RriI()]]]) {
boolean OD7;
}
boolean VJu3X;
int i8MysAibo_xi;
}
Kv9_6kW29o ebkSMOjK7 = !!!-new vBJ()[ new void[ -true[ LE[ Jh().gAQ9zg2S2UD()]]][ yh9zPWBKpwpK.zXgr5ncW()]];
return;
if ( eTIG().O1FR0FuC()) while ( new boolean[ null.O50YKJ2lCE47_][ new v().o1CsfZV()]) ;
UMmGUYkx p_MW8ZV7iRLp = !-new int[ ( new void[ false.q1D_XL][ -!!( CUQCwMZEn4muuv().I()).RW_iE]).FSovaDhyLspqK][ 12371109._Czi637RvR5()];
while ( !this.xFp_lgYH4MLfo8()) return;
void[][][][] A = !!!-ku_8WOg8K.FSVExTXNZiJ();
{
while ( !--( ( !null.DFsbc())[ !-( -oIsH90mSqPQY.ly()).cy]).rVDaU6PNaB()) return;
return;
this.RPNRErl;
void J8C;
!---null.Zeod4;
int tRnPMEltOzbK;
if ( false[ new void[ ---false.u()][ 856249969.c01N()]]) {
while ( !!null.LxVFUbA) while ( new LULZ()[ -OzIK().vofmAS2]) if ( true.M4fm()) if ( !-this.N) while ( new oGtt68r4mJc1().p5i2sZyPlmd()) !8879.TeRV7rE9S;
}
if ( true.nRY) ;
boolean[][][][] m;
int[][][][][] DSm0JF;
if ( new boolean[ -!!false.tBltbNwFuEek0U()][ !GFMPDKHWQnn15.zsCBJxIb3mqo]) -!new void[ null.DGfKWf1rQ()].qZVCSGR();
int wIu9vR9;
while ( !( true.g8yqyH())[ false.X]) return;
new bUXkS1f39J()[ !!!!true[ ---!true.xO5pb6IIecG()]];
--!!!i5ONFh3L().wKkEj7vts5v;
{
int KJmCnzPWQc2GST;
}
boolean[] ESI;
}
{
i p0wpc4goj9USdB;
boolean qvHenT22h_O;
;
boolean YpQtYqJ;
{
int[][][][] ujQf;
}
boolean[][][][] sPru3nRJUhFc;
void ByRc;
while ( true[ null.lt9AYlSsk()]) if ( 779307[ 52417192.Hd()]) while ( !true[ new SH().Wh2Q()]) if ( !!null[ ( ---293.Ar5KHKuJwL7p)[ 99631963.ua0fx]]) Sff().TqYL();
void f;
boolean[] C5TOz;
this.kk2XOq2il9H2();
D[] glw7jdDUhIgrx;
int[] iC45i8dPWcLN;
return;
;
while ( -!!new boolean[ -true.y].VCx()) if ( ( -true.igJTLBY)[ 238659791.yR1ENqJ]) while ( true.x90()) if ( -this.R3k0dc0V4Q_y) return;
int dDt0aryyB;
v3y jl8U;
boolean vQb2Sg;
}
}
public W9ET4a5V[] QVqHzNXKBdxa () {
while ( -!Cpb7NVQ()[ !8954038[ -!bwg04_zF.q0TjcF]]) {
while ( 455619[ new ZmpC5IQ3KxhO().dkPy8LHrgy50QV()]) ;
}
;
while ( null.wxe()) -!!!!new IZDYIpOje3K4l()[ -!false.Gm4hAr];
return --new l3A9MMrkYOG().ma();
int[][][] QhhGmmlQyEHL;
{
dubQdZ_7L[][] kpRSur3BDQo;
aQlfmPwRE7[][][][] EVfMA7Nmak;
y1N1b Sfv;
boolean JDr_Vj;
while ( !-null[ 996835105.Pp1eIY2dy_()]) {
{
!false.jJ66MRc5();
}
}
while ( !false.JksbP()) while ( !null.Sfzn2TeXLD) g0aeAeqJ0().bPoDJ79S;
{
void[][] s5QOzMk8Kuom;
}
if ( -this[ 1147785.zMmRR]) return;
void Mvsp9;
{
boolean[][][] _;
}
int[] mEupIlU;
while ( -true.yOpfwfc) if ( new sEBkfwk3()[ !!-!null.XZqmm()]) return;
return;
Efkolk[][] wp;
}
int u_T773Dhs;
boolean[][][][][][] lvssUrWdPs = true[ -!!-c4jsjQ2eh().UGIx()];
return new w6lE1jaE()[ !--( !-!new y7r().Y2U2Z2yTTz())[ -false[ false[ !!-null.sHYbJmjL_]]]];
if ( new int[ !false[ PoPDaqjbg.CDtJ]][ -!new at()[ uf8FKjLvX().O]]) new Hz9BxZkleo0().i9G_C();else if ( !( -7737._soP8E).fPdPh9v_ffFz6) if ( -1.kArohoo) while ( new FI0iiWiii6Bf().nX()) true[ new V().U19Vz3Jk];
int[][] dTpSz6A_IC7;
-3373671[ -false.df5pEV2()];
boolean[][] KXm;
while ( !-!!396273.GZWf2IZxKcRA) if ( !new eZ().dL9t_yewC4nm()) ;
!!-new boolean[ false[ -this[ -new z0h[ -( ( false[ !!( -null.FI)[ false.I]])[ null[ null.Ol33fQ()]]).Ya3u2xCigTU].KJV4k]]][ 17227673.GdXtaZJClavO()];
;
int[][][] KkZMLT = !--587270447.nl() = !iyfYLp6K_oMMt().xO91gaNWOIGq();
}
public void[][] nh_4hu () throws pvlw0rAIkA {
boolean v1jQlr1tNjXkg;
boolean duf3SiIiQeh = new NVY()[ new boolean[ ( -( this.Zn()).OvjLYj()).AR9YrlD][ M.Wj()]] = !06[ this.h];
int[] AG1xHzAH_mt2UI = true.SnC5c;
void vQrmWo7Ke5u;
void[][][][][][][][][][] KZPlFj;
;
;
return;
;
}
}
class EdC1t {
public void zbhtoCv;
}
|
use super::Optimizer;
use crate::compress::optimize::Ctx;
use crate::util::idents_used_by;
use crate::util::make_number;
use crate::util::IdentUsageCollector;
use fxhash::FxHashMap;
use std::collections::HashMap;
use std::mem::replace;
use std::mem::swap;
use swc_atoms::js_word;
use swc_common::pass::Either;
use swc_common::Spanned;
use swc_common::DUMMY_SP;
use swc_ecma_ast::*;
use swc_ecma_transforms_base::ext::MapWithMut;
use swc_ecma_utils::find_ids;
use swc_ecma_utils::ident::IdentLike;
use swc_ecma_utils::undefined;
use swc_ecma_utils::DestructuringFinder;
use swc_ecma_utils::ExprExt;
use swc_ecma_utils::Id;
use swc_ecma_visit::VisitMutWith;
use swc_ecma_visit::VisitWith;
/// Methods related to the option `negate_iife`.
impl Optimizer<'_> {
/// Negates iife, while ignore return value.
pub(super) fn negate_iife_ignoring_ret(&mut self, e: &mut Expr) {
if !self.options.negate_iife || self.ctx.in_bang_arg {
return;
}
let expr = match e {
Expr::Call(e) => e,
_ => return,
};
let callee = match &mut expr.callee {
ExprOrSuper::Super(_) => return,
ExprOrSuper::Expr(e) => &mut **e,
};
match callee {
Expr::Fn(..) => {
log::trace!("negate_iife: Negating iife");
*e = Expr::Unary(UnaryExpr {
span: DUMMY_SP,
op: op!("!"),
arg: Box::new(e.take()),
});
return;
}
_ => {}
}
}
///
/// - `iife ? foo : bar` => `!iife ? bar : foo`
pub(super) fn negate_iife_in_cond(&mut self, e: &mut Expr) {
let cond = match e {
Expr::Cond(v) => v,
_ => return,
};
let test_call = match &mut *cond.test {
Expr::Call(e) => e,
_ => return,
};
let callee = match &mut test_call.callee {
ExprOrSuper::Super(_) => return,
ExprOrSuper::Expr(e) => &mut **e,
};
match callee {
Expr::Fn(..) => {
log::trace!("negate_iife: Swapping cons and alt");
cond.test = Box::new(Expr::Unary(UnaryExpr {
span: DUMMY_SP,
op: op!("!"),
arg: cond.test.take(),
}));
swap(&mut cond.cons, &mut cond.alt);
return;
}
_ => {}
}
}
}
/// Methods related to iife.
impl Optimizer<'_> {
/// # Exmaple
///
/// ## Input
///
/// ```ts
/// (function(x) {
/// (function(y) {
/// console.log(7);
/// })(7);
/// })(7);
/// ```
///
///
/// ## Output
///
/// ```ts
/// (function(x) {
/// (function(y) {
/// console.log(y);
/// })(x);
/// })(7);
/// ```
pub(super) fn inline_args_of_iife(&mut self, e: &mut CallExpr) {
if self.options.inline == 0 {
return;
}
let has_spread_arg = e.args.iter().any(|v| v.spread.is_some());
if has_spread_arg {
return;
}
let callee = match &mut e.callee {
ExprOrSuper::Super(_) => return,
ExprOrSuper::Expr(e) => &mut **e,
};
fn find_params(callee: &Expr) -> Option<Vec<&Pat>> {
match callee {
Expr::Arrow(callee) => Some(callee.params.iter().collect()),
Expr::Fn(callee) => Some(
callee
.function
.params
.iter()
.map(|param| ¶m.pat)
.collect(),
),
_ => return None,
}
}
fn find_body(callee: &mut Expr) -> Option<Either<&mut BlockStmt, &mut Expr>> {
match callee {
Expr::Arrow(e) => match &mut e.body {
BlockStmtOrExpr::BlockStmt(b) => Some(Either::Left(b)),
BlockStmtOrExpr::Expr(b) => Some(Either::Right(&mut **b)),
},
Expr::Fn(e) => Some(Either::Left(e.function.body.as_mut().unwrap())),
_ => None,
}
}
let params = find_params(&callee);
if let Some(params) = params {
let mut vars = HashMap::default();
// We check for parameter and argument
for (idx, param) in params.iter().enumerate() {
let arg = e.args.get(idx).map(|v| &v.expr);
if let Pat::Ident(param) = ¶m {
if let Some(usage) = self
.data
.as_ref()
.and_then(|data| data.vars.get(¶m.to_id()))
{
if usage.reassigned {
continue;
}
}
if let Some(arg) = arg {
let should_be_inlined = self.can_be_inlined_for_iife(arg);
if should_be_inlined {
log::trace!(
"iife: Trying to inline {}{:?}",
param.id.sym,
param.id.span.ctxt
);
vars.insert(param.to_id(), arg.clone());
}
} else {
log::trace!(
"iife: Trying to inline {}{:?} (undefined)",
param.id.sym,
param.id.span.ctxt
);
vars.insert(param.to_id(), undefined(param.span()));
}
}
}
match find_body(callee) {
Some(Either::Left(body)) => {
log::debug!("inline: Inlining arguments");
self.inline_vars_in_node(body, vars);
}
Some(Either::Right(body)) => {
log::debug!("inline: Inlining arguments");
self.inline_vars_in_node(body, vars);
}
_ => {}
}
}
}
fn inline_vars_in_node<N>(&mut self, n: &mut N, vars: FxHashMap<Id, Box<Expr>>)
where
N: VisitMutWith<Self>,
{
let ctx = Ctx {
inline_prevented: false,
..self.ctx
};
let orig_vars = replace(&mut self.vars_for_inlining, vars);
n.visit_mut_with(&mut *self.with_ctx(ctx));
self.vars_for_inlining = orig_vars;
}
/// Fully inlines iife.
///
/// # Example
///
/// ## Input
///
/// ```ts
/// (function () {
/// return {};
/// })().x = 10;
/// ```
///
/// ## Oupuy
///
/// ```ts
/// ({
/// }).x = 10;
/// ```
pub(super) fn invoke_iife(&mut self, e: &mut Expr) {
if self.options.inline == 0 {
let skip = match e {
Expr::Call(v) => !v.callee.span().is_dummy(),
_ => true,
};
if skip {
return;
}
}
if self.ctx.inline_prevented {
return;
}
let call = match e {
Expr::Call(v) => v,
_ => return,
};
if self.has_noinline(call.span) {
return;
}
let callee = match &mut call.callee {
ExprOrSuper::Super(_) => return,
ExprOrSuper::Expr(e) => &mut **e,
};
if call.args.iter().any(|arg| match &*arg.expr {
Expr::Member(MemberExpr {
computed: false, ..
}) => false,
_ => arg.expr.may_have_side_effects(),
}) {
return;
}
match callee {
Expr::Arrow(f) => {
if f.params.iter().any(|param| !param.is_ident()) {
return;
}
if is_param_used_by_body(&f.params, &f.body) {
return;
}
match &mut f.body {
BlockStmtOrExpr::BlockStmt(body) => {
let new = self.inline_fn_like(body);
if let Some(new) = new {
self.changed = true;
log::trace!("inline: Inlining a function call (arrow)");
*e = new;
}
return;
}
BlockStmtOrExpr::Expr(body) => match &**body {
Expr::Lit(Lit::Num(..)) => {
if self.ctx.in_obj_of_non_computed_member {
return;
}
}
_ => {}
},
}
let mut inline_map = HashMap::default();
for (idx, param) in f.params.iter().enumerate() {
let arg_val = if let Some(arg) = call.args.get(idx) {
arg.expr.clone()
} else {
undefined(DUMMY_SP)
};
match param {
Pat::Ident(param) => {
inline_map.insert(param.id.to_id(), arg_val);
}
_ => {}
}
}
self.inline_vars_in_node(&mut f.body, inline_map);
match &mut f.body {
BlockStmtOrExpr::BlockStmt(_) => {
// TODO
}
BlockStmtOrExpr::Expr(body) => {
self.changed = true;
log::trace!("inline: Inlining a call to an arrow function");
*e = Expr::Seq(SeqExpr {
span: DUMMY_SP,
exprs: vec![Box::new(make_number(DUMMY_SP, 0.0)), body.take()],
});
return;
}
}
}
Expr::Fn(f) => {
if f.function.is_generator {
return;
}
// Abort if a parameter is complex
if f.function.params.iter().any(|param| match param.pat {
Pat::Object(..) | Pat::Array(..) | Pat::Assign(..) | Pat::Rest(..) => true,
_ => false,
}) {
return;
}
if let Some(i) = &f.ident {
if idents_used_by(&f.function.body).contains(&i.to_id()) {
return;
}
}
if is_param_used_by_body(&f.function.params, &f.function.body) {
return;
}
let body = f.function.body.as_mut().unwrap();
if body.stmts.is_empty() {
*e = *undefined(f.function.span);
return;
}
let new = self.inline_fn_like(body);
if let Some(new) = new {
self.changed = true;
log::trace!("inline: Inlining a function call");
*e = new;
}
//
}
_ => {}
}
}
fn inline_fn_like(&mut self, body: &mut BlockStmt) -> Option<Expr> {
if !body.stmts.iter().all(|stmt| match stmt {
Stmt::Expr(e) if e.expr.is_await_expr() => false,
Stmt::Expr(..) => true,
Stmt::Return(ReturnStmt { arg, .. }) => match arg.as_deref() {
Some(Expr::Await(..)) => false,
Some(Expr::Lit(Lit::Num(..))) => {
if self.ctx.in_obj_of_non_computed_member {
false
} else {
true
}
}
_ => true,
},
_ => false,
}) {
return None;
}
let mut exprs = vec![];
for stmt in body.stmts.take() {
match stmt {
Stmt::Expr(stmt) => {
exprs.push(stmt.expr);
}
Stmt::Return(stmt) => {
let span = stmt.span;
let val = *stmt.arg.unwrap_or_else(|| undefined(span));
exprs.push(Box::new(val));
return Some(Expr::Seq(SeqExpr {
span: DUMMY_SP,
exprs,
}));
}
_ => {}
}
}
if let Some(last) = exprs.last_mut() {
*last = Box::new(Expr::Unary(UnaryExpr {
span: DUMMY_SP,
op: op!("void"),
arg: last.take(),
}));
} else {
return Some(*undefined(body.span));
}
Some(Expr::Seq(SeqExpr {
span: DUMMY_SP,
exprs,
}))
}
fn can_be_inlined_for_iife(&self, arg: &Expr) -> bool {
match arg {
Expr::Lit(..) => true,
Expr::Unary(UnaryExpr {
op: op!("void"),
arg,
..
})
| Expr::Unary(UnaryExpr {
op: op!("!"), arg, ..
}) => self.can_be_inlined_for_iife(&arg),
Expr::Ident(..) => true,
Expr::Member(MemberExpr {
obj: ExprOrSuper::Expr(obj),
computed: false,
..
}) => self.can_be_inlined_for_iife(&obj),
Expr::Bin(BinExpr {
op, left, right, ..
}) => match op {
op!(bin, "+") | op!("*") => {
self.can_be_inlined_for_iife(&left) && self.can_be_inlined_for_iife(&right)
}
_ => false,
},
Expr::Object(ObjectLit { props, .. }) => {
for prop in props {
match prop {
PropOrSpread::Spread(_) => return false,
PropOrSpread::Prop(p) => match &**p {
Prop::Shorthand(_) => {}
Prop::KeyValue(kv) => {
if let PropName::Computed(key) = &kv.key {
if !self.can_be_inlined_for_iife(&key.expr) {
return false;
}
}
if !self.can_be_inlined_for_iife(&kv.value) {
return false;
}
}
Prop::Assign(p) => {
if !self.can_be_inlined_for_iife(&p.value) {
return false;
}
}
_ => return false,
},
}
}
true
}
Expr::Arrow(ArrowExpr {
params,
body: BlockStmtOrExpr::Expr(body),
is_async: false,
is_generator: false,
..
}) => params.iter().all(|p| p.is_ident()) && self.can_be_inlined_for_iife(&body),
_ => false,
}
}
}
// We can't remove a function call if a parameter is declared by function and
// the body of the function uses it.
fn is_param_used_by_body<P, B>(params: &P, body: &B) -> bool
where
P: for<'any> VisitWith<DestructuringFinder<'any, Id>>,
B: VisitWith<IdentUsageCollector>,
{
let declared: Vec<Id> = find_ids(params);
let used = idents_used_by(body);
for id in declared {
if used.contains(&id) {
return true;
}
}
for (sym, _) in used {
if sym == js_word!("arguments") {
return true;
}
}
false
}
|
Remote keyless entry (RKE) systems are extensively used in vehicles to provide a convenient way to lock and unlock vehicle doors. Tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) are also being incorporated into vehicles to provide a convenient way of tracking tire pressure and notifying a user if any of the tires is experiencing low pressure. The RKE and TPMS functions may be combined into a single circuit.
The circuit will draw current even when the vehicle is turned off because it needs to be able to receive a key fob signal at any time to assess whether to unlock the vehicle door. The circuit also should be able to receive a tire pressure monitoring signal so that a user will be able to detect a low tire pressure condition as soon as it occurs. Thus, it is desirable for the circuit to have a low biasing current draw to prevent the vehicle battery from draining. This may be difficult, however, because the circuit has both a controller and receiver that must be operating nearly continuously to detect the key fob signal, thereby constantly drawing current even when the vehicle is turned off.
It is possible to reduce the overall current draw by shutting down the controller in the circuit and waking up the controller to check for a key fob signal and/or a tire pressure signal at predetermined time periods dictated by a continuously running clock because the clock itself draws very little current. To do this, the circuit may be duty-cycled in the most efficient manner possible to minimize current consumption while still guaranteeing reliable reception of TPMS and RKE data.
Every time a receiver in the circuit detects data, the controller will wake up. However, because data and noise appear alike to the receiver, using a standard synchronous duty cycle that checks for TPMS data and RKE data at the same time caused an excessive number of false wakeups in the controller due to noise output by the receiver. This is because TPMS data may need a longer verification period than RKE data and, therefore, the controller needs to be kept awake for a longer period of time to detect the TPMS data, increasing the chance that the receiver will also pick up noise that could be mistaken as data. Even though the noise will be screened out by the controller after it wakes up, these false wakeups cause the controller to draw excessive current unnecessarily. But reducing the number of actual controller wakeups may reduce the reliability of data reception.
There is a desire for a TPMS/RKE system that reduces current draw without sacrificing data reception reliability. |
Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie says the data the firm gathered from Facebook could have come from more than 87 million users and could be stored in Russia.
The number of Facebook users whose personal information was accessed by Cambridge Analytica "could be higher, absolutely," than the 87 million users acknowledged by Facebook, Wylie told NBC's Chuck Todd during a "Meet the Press" segment Sunday.
Wylie added that his lawyer has been contacted by US authorities, including congressional investigators and the Department of Justice, and says he plans to cooperate with them.
"We're just setting out dates that I can actually go and sit down and meet with the authorities," he said.
The former Cambridge Analytica employee said that "a lot of people" had access to the data and referenced a "genuine risk" that the harvested data could be stored in Russia.
"It could be stored in various parts of the world, including Russia, given the fact that the professor who was managing the data harvesting process was going back and forth between the UK and to Russia," Wylie said.
Aleksander Kogan, a Russian data scientist who gave lectures at St. Petersburg State University, gathered Facebook data from millions of Americans. He then sold it to Cambridge Analytica, which worked with President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
When asked if he thought Facebook was even able to calculate the number of users affected, Wylie stressed that data can be copied once it leaves a database.
"I know that Facebook is now starting to take steps to rectify that and start to find out who had access to it and where it could have gone, but ultimately it's not watertight to say that, you know, we can ensure that all the data is gone forever," he said.
Wylie cited the risks of the data's exposure as a reason he blew the whistle on the company. "Part of the reason that I spoke out was so that this could be looked at," he said. |
package procyon
import context "github.com/procyon-projects/procyon-context"
type ApplicationRunner interface {
OnApplicationRun(context context.Context, arguments ApplicationArguments)
}
|
Reducing depression in older home care clients: design of a prospective study of a nurse-led interprofessional mental health promotion intervention Background Very little research has been conducted in the area of depression among older home care clients using personal support services. These older adults are particularly vulnerable to depression because of decreased cognition, comorbid chronic conditions, functional limitations, lack of social support, and reduced access to health services. To date, research has focused on collaborative, nurse-led depression care programs among older adults in primary care settings. Optimal management of depression among older home care clients is not currently known. The objective of this study is to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness of a 6-month nurse-led, interprofessional mental health promotion intervention aimed at older home care clients with depressive symptoms using personal support services. Methods/Design This one-group pre-test post-test study aims to recruit a total of 250 long-stay (> 60 days) home care clients, 70 years or older, with depressive symptoms who are receiving personal support services through a home care program in Ontario, Canada. The nurse-led intervention is a multi-faceted 6-month program led by a Registered Nurse that involves regular home visits, monthly case conferences, and evidence-based assessment and management of depression using an interprofessional approach. The primary outcome is the change in severity of depressive symptoms from baseline to 6 months using the Centre for Epidemiological Studies in Depression Scale. Secondary outcomes include changes in the prevalence of depressive symptoms and anxiety, health-related quality of life, cognitive function, and the rate and appropriateness of depression treatment from baseline to 12 months. Changes in the costs of use of health services will be assessed from a societal perspective. Descriptive and qualitative data will be collected to examine the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention and identify barriers and facilitators to implementation. Discussion Data collection began in May 2010 and is expected to be completed by July 2012. A collaborative nurse-led strategy may provide a feasible, acceptable and effective means for improving the health of older home care clients by improving the prevention, recognition, and management of depression in this vulnerable population. The challenges involved in designing a practical, transferable and sustainable nurse-led intervention in home care are also discussed. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01407926 Background Depression affects 26% -44% of older adults using home care services -at least twice that among older persons in general. They also suffer from a fourfold increase in more severe forms of depression than the general population. Yet, this population is one of the most undertreated populations for mental health [1,. In one study only 22% of depressed older home care clients were found to be in receipt of any antidepressant treatment, and only 15% received adequate treatment. Untreated or undertreated depression in older adults is a significant public health concern, associated with greater morbidity and dependency, functional decline, diminished quality of life, poor adherence to medical treatment, increased demands on family caregivers, increased use of healthcare services and death [2,3,5,. The costs of health care associated with depression are staggering. Annual costs for depression in Canada are estimated at over 14.4 billion, attributable to primary care visits, hospitalization, and medication. These costs are compounded by indirect costs, such as costs to family caregivers, many of whom have depression themselves. Older home care clients using personal support services (PSS) are at particularly high risk for depression, compared to other home care clients. This segment of the population, who represent approximately 75-80% of home care users, are typically over 70 years of age and have co-existing chronic and acute health conditions, functional disabilities, cognitive impairment, or social support networks that are overextended or prone to breakdown with any shift in their health and well-being. These are the same conditions that are associated with an increased risk of depression. The magnitude of the problem has the potential to increase relative to the increasing numbers of those over 65 years of age, the associated increase in the prevalence of depression and the increasing demand for PSS. Home care is the largest component of community-based services and one of the fastest growing components of the health care system. In Canada, approximately 90% of the expenditure for home care services for older adults with ongoing care needs is for PSS and 10% is for professional services. Models of care that facilitate interprofessional (IP) collaborative practice are increasingly recognized as a means of addressing such demands and improving client outcomes as they lead to more efficient and effective use of health care resources and health care providers' skills. IP collaborative practice "is designed to promote the active participation of each discipline in patient care. It enhances patient and family centred goals and values, provides mechanisms for continuous communication among caregivers, optimizes staff participation in clinical decision-making within and across disciplines and fosters respect for the disciplinary contributions of all professionals". Depression generally results from an interaction of multiple and diverse risk factors, many of which are modifiable, such as persistent sleep difficulties, chronic stress associated with declining health, family or marital problems, and social isolation. Studies have shown that attention to these risk factors can reduce the prevalence and severity of depression. Relatively little is known, however, about the effectiveness of a nurse-led, IP mental health promotion intervention among older home care clients with depressive symptoms who are using PSS. Other limitations of these studies include: not providing an adequate description of the nurse-led intervention and the competing alternatives; not including older adults with cognitive impairment, substance abuse, or suicidal risk; not assessing the effect of the intervention on anxiety or social support; not assessing the acceptability of the intervention; not examining which subgroups of older adults benefit most from the intervention; and not assessing the cost-effectiveness of the intervention from a societal perspective. Nevertheless, these studies suggest that given the complex and multifactorial nature of depression, multicomponent, coordinated, and collaborative interventions provided by an IP team, using standardized screening tools and evidence-based treatment guidelines that are tailored to individual needs and preferences, will have the greatest impact on reducing depression in this population. The benefit is even greater if the program targets individuals at risk of, suffering from, or recovering from depression, incorporates clinician education, and involves an enhanced role for the nurse (nurse care management), regular follow-up care and a greater degree of integration between primary and specialist mental health care. Despite the strength of the evidence for the effectiveness of these strategies among older adults in primary care and institutional settings, numerous challenges exist with respect to integrating these strategies into a home care setting. Many of these challenges are associated with the need for considerable reorganization of the delivery of these services for older adults with chronic needs. Specifically, home care is underfunded; in Canada, the 9% yearly growth has outpaced the 2.2% increase in spending [21,, resulting in a shift in the allocation of scarce home care services away from health promotion, disease prevention, and chronic care to meet the more pressing need for post-acute care substitution. The result is that home care clients at risk of, suffering from, or recovering from depression have limited access to professional services directed toward promoting mental health, especially nursing. In many jurisdictions, eligibility for, and allocation of, home care services is directed toward addressing physical needsmental health problems must be the secondary diagnosis in order to be eligible. Other barriers to optimal depression care include inadequate collaboration and communication between home and community care providers, primary health care providers, and specialized mental health care providers, no continuity among providers, difficulties accessing specialized mental healthcare services, lack of expertise among home care providers in recognizing and managing depression, underuse of depression screening tools, competing co-morbid health conditions that mask depression, and stigma. A final barrier is the lack of evidence-based practice standards specific to assessment and management of depression in home care for older adults. Routine screening for depressive symptoms among older home care clients is not yet current practice in Canada. Thus, there is an urgent need for research to identify effective interventions to overcome these barriers to improve the prevention, recognition, and management of depression in this population. The existing research involving home care clients is limited to descriptive, case control and quasi-experimental studies evaluating the effectiveness of nurse-led screening and referral for depression; not direct and ongoing follow-up care [3,64,. There is however, promising evidence from our previous trial, which demonstrated that a six-month nursing health promotion intervention, directed toward a general population of older home care clients (≥ 75 years) using PSS, compared with providing nursing services on demand, resulted in increased mental health functioning and related quality of life and a reduction in the severity of depressive at no additional cost, from a societal perspective. Further, there is evidence from two clinical trials of the effectiveness and feasibility of RNs working with personal support workers (PSWs) in reducing depressive symptoms among older adults in long-term care settings. The present study builds on this work by developing and testing a mental health promotion intervention involving proactive follow-up by nurse (RN) care managers working collaboratively with the PSW, the home care case manager, the client's primary care physician (PCP), and other IP home care providers (e.g., occupational therapy, physiotherapy, social work), among atrisk seniors with depressive symptoms using PSS, as opposed to the general population of seniors using home care services. The specific objective of the study is to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of a 6-month nurse-led IP mental health promotion intervention aimed at older home care clients with depressive symptoms using PSS. Our primary hypothesis is that a nurse-led IP mental health promotion intervention, delivered to older home care clients with depressive symptoms, will result in a reduction in the severity of depressive symptoms in this population. Further, we hypothesize that the nurse-led intervention will result in a reduction in depression risk factors and will pay for itself by reducing the use of expensive healthcare resources. These study findings will inform the role of nurses within the IP home care team in the management of depression and will generate lessons learned that are relevant to other home care settings. Given the increasing numbers of those over 65 years of age and the increasing demand for PSS, this collaborative nurse-led strategy may provide a feasible, acceptable and effective means for improving the quality of life of older home care clients by improving the prevention, early recognition, and management of depression. We also discuss the issues and challenges involved in designing a practical, transferable and sustainable nurseled strategy in home care. Publishing the design and protocol of a study before results are available is important for several reasons. First, publication of the design of the study encourages publication of the results and informs researchers where they can find data for inclusion in a systematic review. Second, it has often been recognized that negative and adverse outcomes are less likely to be published. Thus, publishing a design article can reduce the likelihood of publication bias. Finally, the publication of the design allows easier comparison between what was originally intended and hypothesized and what was actually done and provides insight into the methodological quality of a study. The study will also provide information on the baseline prevalence, determinants and costs of depressive symptoms in older home care clients using PSS. Methods/Design This study is being conducted in accordance with the Tri-Council Policy Statement, "Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans". Ethics approval for the study was obtained from the McMaster University Research and Ethics Board and will be renewed yearly as required (#10-041). All participants provide written informed consent for participation. The methods, results, and flow of participants through the study (Figure 1) are presented according to the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) Statement: guidelines for reporting observational studies. Study Design This is a prospective one-group pre-test post-test study that aims to recruit 250 older home care clients with depressive symptoms who are using PSS. Assessments will be made at baseline (pre-test) and after the intervention, 6 and 12 months later (post-test). Descriptive and qualitative data will be collected to examine the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention and identify barriers and facilitators to implementation. Participants and Setting This study is a collaborative project between researchers at McMaster University, the University of Western Ontario, and the University of Alberta and decisionmakers and practitioners in the Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant (HNHB) Community Care Access Centre (CCAC), Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC), HNHB Local Health Integration Network, Canadian Coalition for Seniors' Mental Health, Canadian Mental Health Association, and two direct care provider agencies (Care Partners and Para-Med Home Healthcare) in Ontario, Canada. The CCAC provides publicly funded home care using a contractual model of service delivery, wherein case managers contract out home care services to agencies that provide care to clients. The HNHB CCAC is the largest CCAC in Ontario and provides home care services to the largest population of seniors in Ontario. Seniors represent 15.1% of the total HNHB population, compared to the Ontario rate of 12.9%. Approximately 15% or 30,000 of these seniors will require home care services. Researchers at McMaster University and decisionmakers and practitioners at the HNHB CCAC and the Ontario MOHLTC have been conducting home-care studies together since 1991. Study participants are long-stay (> 60 days) home care clients, 70 years or older, newly referred to and receiving PSS through the CCAC, living in the community (not in a long-term care home), mentally competent to give informed consent (or with a substitute decisionmaker available), competent in English (or with an interpreter available), not receiving palliative care services, and identified as having depressive symptoms. Recruitment procedures were developed with the goal of enrolling a heterogeneous sample of older home care clients with depressive symptoms that could be identified for the nurse-led intervention under real world practice conditions. A two-step strategy is used to recruit study participants. The first step consists of trained CCAC Case Managers identifying potential participants based on the inclusion criteria. In the second step, Case Managers contact potential participants by phone to screen them for depressive symptoms. An older person is deemed to have depressive symptoms and thus eligible for the study if he/she answers "yes" to either of the following questions: Over the last two weeks, a) have you lost interest or pleasure in doing things most of the day, more days than not? or b) have you felt down, depressed, or hopeless most of the day, more days than not?. Individuals with newly detected depressive symptoms as well as those who are already receiving treatment for depressive symptoms are eligible for inclusion in the study. The Case Manager obtains permission from eligible clients to be contacted by a Research Assistant (RA) who arranges an in-home interview to obtain their written consent, and complete the baseline (pre-test) questionnaires. To validate their informed consent to enrolling and continuing participation in the study, participants also need to score ≥ 24 on the Standardized Mini-Mental State Examination (SMMSE) or have a substitute decision-maker to provide consent and complete the questionnaires on their behalf. A pamphlet is given to all participants with general study information and the contact information of the RA if they have questions or if their contact information changes before the next visit. After providing written, informed consent and completing the baseline questionnaires, participants are assigned to the nurse-led IP intervention. Figure 1 provides a summary of the process of patient selection and flow throughout the study (numbers refused, dropped, lost to follow-up, withdrawal rates, and reasons given). To date, a total of 1,329 consecutive CCAC clients have been screened for the study, and 421 (32%) have screened positive for depressive symptoms and met all eligibility criteria. In total, 134 (31.8%) of the 421 eligible home care clients have consented and entered the study. Development of the Intervention and Training The intervention is an evidence-based program that was specifically designed to overcome known client, provider, and organizational system barriers to depression care in the home care setting. It was developed through a collaborative process with providers and managers from the participating agencies with the goal of integrating the intervention into standard practice once the study ends. The intervention strategy was derived from three sources: a) literature on the key features of best practice models for nurse-led IP mental health promotion interventions (discussed under Introduction), b) existing practice guideline recommendations for the prevention, recognition, and management of depression among older adults, and c) principles of problem-solving therapy (PST) using Nezu et al.'s manual. A number of steps were taken to integrate purposely selected elements of these three approaches into a strategy for the care of older home care clients with depressive symptoms. Sometimes occurring simultaneously and often influencing each other, the steps included: Conducting an analysis of current home care practice to determine how depression is currently being addressed and to identify facilitating and limiting factors that could influence effective use of the intervention. Defining the goals and key features of the intervention and intervention delivery model based on empirical literature. Operationalizing Nezu et al.'s manual for PST for use by depressed older adults with chronic conditions. Adopting the Home Support Exercise Program (HSEP), an evidence-based physical activity intervention for frail community-living seniors using PSWs as the primary vehicle for client instruction, motivation, and support. In the HSEP, each client is instructed on 10 simple, functional, and progressive exercises and 7 healthy eating tips, and given an illustrated booklet, a progress chart, and a short video. The HSEP exercises were designed to be simple (no equipment required), be progressive (in terms of increased time, number of repetitions, or difficulty), and address multiple areas of functioning (particularly mobility, balance, ability to transfer, and strength). Forming an Implementation Team of providers, managers, and researchers, to systematically review existing best practice guideline recommendations, and create a depression risk management protocol. The protocol was designed to provide a systematic, standardized and evidence-based approach to the identification and modification of known risk factors for depression across disciplines. The protocol includes a summary of known risk factors for depression, standardized screening tools, and evidence-based strategies to address these risk factors (Table 1). Redesigning the service delivery model to support the delivery of the nurse-led intervention, which involved: a) identifying a designated team of RNs and PSWs from two existing home care provider agencies to provide the nurse-led intervention, b) developing a detailed intervention protocol, c) establishing the referral process and guidelines for communication among providers and across agencies, d) developing home care provider and client materials to support the delivery of the intervention, and e) developing role-appropriate training manuals for the RNs and PSWs to standardize the intervention. A four-pronged approach is used to implement the nurse-led intervention. First, the investigators held separate educational workshops for the RNs and PSWs. Each three day workshop was supported with role-appropriate standardized training manuals and a modified version of Nezu et al.'s manual for PST. The workshops focused on the scope of the issue and effective evidencebased strategies for depression prevention, detection and management among older adults. The workshops were interactive, drew on participants 'experiences, and included demonstration of skills and opportunities for practice through role plays. These workshops were supplemented by a standardized eight-hour training workshop for the PSWs in the delivery of the HSEP. Once the workshops were completed, the nurse-led intervention was implemented using a multifaceted approach. The Implementation Team conducts scheduled outreach visits with the intervention providers on a monthly basis to discuss the progress of the study, provide feedback and education, discuss barriers encountered and possible solutions for identified barriers. As reminders, the Implementation Team periodically provides updates on the study to their staff including successes and areas for improvement related to the nurseled strategy. At one-month intervals, the principal investigator conducts audits of the study related documentation to assess fidelity to treatment. The results of this review are used as an audit and feedback strategy. Audit and feedback is recommended when combined with education, outreach visits or reminders. Sample Size Calculation and Feasibility of Recruitment The sample size was calculated to detect a clinically important difference of 3.5 points in mean change from baseline to 6 months in the primary outcome measure, severity of depressive symptoms, using the Centre for Epidemiological Studies in Depression (CES-D) Scale. In the general population, a difference of this size would be associated with increased risk of functional decline, stroke, myocardial infarction and mortality. Using a standard deviation of 9.0 as a conservative estimate and a difference of -3.5 points, a base sample size of 105 was estimated to be sufficient to address this primary outcome (two-tailed alpha = 0.05; beta = 0.20). Our primary analysis of the factors that predict the severity of depressive symptoms will be addressed using regression analysis with the change (6-month-baseline) in the CES-D score as the dependent variable. The predictor variable: dose of the intervention (low, moderate, high), and potential confounding variables representing known risk factors for depression (female gender; prior history of depression; antidepressant medication use; living alone; cognitive impairment; family caregiver with depression; widowed, divorced or separated; low income (< $40,000 per annum); co-morbid health conditions; hospital admission in last 6 months; age; use of three or more prescription medications; presence of anxiety disorder; low social support; poor health-related quality of life; excessive consumption of alcohol; taking Assessment and management of chronic and acute illness (within last 3 months); continued medical management as per physician; education for disease self-management Taking Depressogenic Medications Taking inappropriate medications as per the Beer's criteria Regular critical review of all medications, including herbals and OTC for depressogenic medications and potentially inappropriate medications using the Beer's criteria; Initiate Medication Alert to family physician for critical medication review and modification/withdrawal; Medication review by client's own pharmacist; Client education re: safe medication use, reliable means of organizing pills, medication side effects and possible interactions, inform physician/pharmacist of non-prescription medications. Limitations in activities of daily living Referral to OT/PT or community resources for assistance with ADLs, e.g., personal care, meals on wheels, home maintenance services); Education of caregivers if required Cognitive Impairment and/or recent change in mental functioning identified by SMMSE score: < 24/30 Initiate Dementia Alert to family physician for further assessment or discuss diagnosis and treatment; Ongoing monitoring to anticipate future needs for support; Recommend environmental adaptations; Refer to community supports; Education regarding cognitive limitations, strategies, disease process; Referral to OT/PT and family physician for treatment of perceptual disorders Delirium identified by the Confusion Assessment Method (CAM) Initiate Delirium Alert to family physician for immediate treatment Identify potential risk factors for delirium Anxiety identified by Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) Screener Score ≥ 5/21 Provide support and information; Referral to family physician for further assessment and treatment and need for medication Initiate problem-solving therapy; Refer to community supports Living alone Social isolation or withdrawal Discussion of increased risk and possible change of living arrangement; Education regarding community resources to enhance social supports, e.g., Seniors club;; Participate in congregate dining; Refer to other community supports Excessive Alcohol Consumption (> 14 standard drinks/wk for men and > 9 standard drinks/wk for women) Refer to community resources Vision/hearing Impairment Assess client for visual impairment or hearing loss; Suggest use of visual aids (glasses, magnifying glass, CNIB); Referral to audiology; Referral to CNIB Low Income Level Ask client if they have enough money for the things they need; able to afford necessities; Referral to Social Work or other community supports for assistance with financial matters Low Education Level Provide resources for literacy Primary caregiver to a significant other with a chronic health condition Caregiver burden/strain identified by Modified Caregiver Strain Index (CSI) Score Assess caregiver health (physical and mental), level of caregiver strain, level of social contact and supports, and physical activity; Refer to community supports; Provide education regarding available community services and supports for caregiving Adverse Life Event Chronic Stress Ask client about any recent stressful life events (e.g., separation, losses, financial crisis, relocation to LTC); Provide education regarding ways to lessen stress; Refer to community supports depressogenic medications; recent stressful life event; presence of risk factors for cardiovascular disease; and chronic pain), will be included in the initial models. Norman & Streiner recommend 5 participants for each independent variable included in a regression model; therefore, since the study included twenty independent confounding variables, and taking into account a possible 20% attrition rate, the minimum sample size was calculated as follows: 105 + (5 20) = 205 plus 20% = 246. In order to ensure a case to variable ratio that would suffice the number of variables, an even larger sample of 250 participants was planned for recruitment. The estimated attrition rate was based on an earlier trial in which 84% of the study participants completed the 6-month follow-up. Our previous pilot study in the HNHB CCAC found that, on average, 100 long-stay (> 60 days) home care clients, 70 years or older, are referred to the CCAC for PSS . Based on our previous trials with this population, it is expected that approximately 30% will screen positive for depressive symptoms and meet all eligibility criteria, and 10 (33%) of these eligible clients will refuse to consent for the study. Thus, we predicted that it would be possible to prospectively recruit 250 older adults with depressive symptoms in thirteen months (20 per month). Recruitment began in May 2010 and is expected to be completed in June 2011 (13 months). Intervention The nurse-led intervention consists of standard home care services plus home visitation by a designated team of RNs and a PSWs a minimum of once per month over a 6-month period. Standard home care services include routine follow-up by the CCAC case manager whose focus is on assessing the client's eligibility for in-home health services, arranging and coordinating professional (e.g., nursing, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, social work, speech-language pathology, and dietitian) and non-professional PSS, providing information and referral to community agencies, and monitoring and evaluating the plan of care on an ongoing basis through in-home assessments. The CCAC care coordinator determines eligibility and priority level for home care services and the amount and type of home care services required, based on set criteria. The designated RN and PSW team provides a comprehensive, collaborative and evidence-based approach to the prevention, recognition and management of depression through regular home visits, standardized screening protocols, modification of risk factors for depression, depression education, support of antidepressant medication management, referral and linkage to health and social services, delivery of PST and social and behavioural activation, monthly case conferencing, and the development of a single, evidence-based depression management plan. The intervention, which is individualized to the client's needs, is coordinated by the RN. The RN provides leadership and coordinates communication between the client and their family caregiver, the PSW, the CCAC CM, the client's primary care physician (PCP), and other IP providers. The aim of the designated team of RNs and PSWs is to recognize, manage, and reduce the severity of depressive symptoms to enhance health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and reduce on-demand use of expensive health services. The frequency and timing of the home visits and case conferences is based on individual client needs and the results of the ongoing assessment of the client's progress toward the goals. At each home visit, the RN systematically assesses for depression risk factors using the depression risk Refer to community supports, e.g., support groups Chronic Pain Assess current pain levels and treatment; Refer to family physician for review of current treatment; Refer to specialized pain clinic Avoidant or Dependent Personality Types When asking client about previous depression history, also ask about any other psychiatric illness such as personality disorders or anxiety Persistent Sleep Difficulties Assess for change in sleep patterns; Educate client about sleep hygiene techniques, and nonpharmacological approaches to improve sleep; Refer client to physician for further assessment if sleep is identified as a major issue Nutritional risk identified by Screen II Score: < 50/64 Nutrition education; Refer to Registered Dietitian Assess need for alternative feeding methods and/or supplements; Review medications and potential for food/drug interactions ADLs indicates activities of daily living; Screen II, Seniors in the Community: Risk Evaluation for Eating and Nutrition, version II; OT, occupational therapist; PT, physiotherapist; CNIB, Canadian National Institute for the Blind; LTC, long-term care management protocol (Table 1), and monitors responsiveness to treatment using the Geriatric Depression Scale-15 (GDS-15). The RN supports antidepressant medication management in collaboration with clients and their PCP using evidence-based guidelines. During the initial treatment period, when starting or modifying antidepressants, the RN conducts weekly telephone reassessment for at least four weeks to assess response, side effects and to titrate the dose. Following initial improvement (< 6 on the GDS-15), ongoing follow-up through monthly home visits is provided to assess clinical outcomes and support adherence to treatment. For clients who do not respond to initial treatment (≥ 50% reduction in depressive symptoms is not achieved) treatment is discussed with the client's PCP. At each visit, the PSW also monitors depressive symptoms using the behavioural rating scale for intramural psychogeriatric inpatients (GIP-28). The PSWs are expected to keep detailed records and report their observations and concerns to the RN. Two RCTs have demonstrated that use of the GIP-28 by PSWs working in collaboration with an RN is an effective, feasible, and acceptable strategy for increasing the recognition of depressive symptoms in older adults. Clients and their caregivers also receive education on depression using printed educational materials (from the Canadian Coalition for Seniors' Mental Health and Canadian Mental Health Association). Each client's treatment regimen is discussed by the RN and PSW at a case conference held a minimum of once per month for 6 months. A depression care booklet is used to systematically guide the RN and PSW team through a series of questions that triggers assessment of depressive symptoms, current treatment, treatment response, risk factors for depression, use of social and behavioural activation and PST, and recommended actions for reducing depressive symptoms and promoting health-related quality of life. The RN assesses client's problem-solving strengths and limitations using the Problem-Solving test, and provides a minimum of 6 sessions of PST using Nezu et al.'s manual, as part of their home visit. PST consists of teaching participants a five-step problem-solving model. The overall goal of PST is to help the depressed person develop skills in order to approach life problems in an active fashion, using the steps of problem-solving as a coping strategy. A series of RCTs conducted in primary health care and other community settings have demonstrated that PST provided by RNs is an effective, feasible, and acceptable treatment for depression in older adults. We selected Nezu et al.'s problem-solving method because of its sequenced approach to teaching problem-solving and its emphasis on problem orientation, a critical element of problem-solving therapy. In our application, we use the therapy's five steps which consist of: a) developing a positive, optimistic attitude toward the problem and one's ability to cope with it; b) defining the problem and setting realistic goals; c) discussing and evaluating different ways to reach goals; d) creating action plans; and e) evaluating their effectiveness in reaching goals. However, the RN is more directive than specified in the original PST instructions, and participants are encouraged to focus on less complex problems to facilitate learning. During the initial home visits, clients are asked to identify the most frequent or stressful problems they are encountering and how they are managing the problem. The RN then assists the client to effectively apply the problemsolving steps to address each problem in a sequential order as prioritized by the client using a problem-solving worksheet. Social and behavioural activation involves assisting and encouraging clients to participate in a regular physical activity program that is tailored to individual needs by providing information, personal counselling, support, and skills training to overcome barriers to increasing their physical activity levels. Physical activity is encouraged through the use of the Home Support Exercise Program (HSEP). The RN introduces the client to the program, assesses their interest and ability, and authorizes the PSW to start the client on the program. Using one-on-one coaching, the PSW and client begin working through the ten exercises and seven healthy eating tips with the client, along with the HSEP resources and a progress chart. The goal of social and behavioural activation is to increase client and caregivers' interactions outside the home by facilitating referrals to seniors' programs, support groups or other community services. The RN develops an evidence-based plan of care to meet mutually agreed upon and attainable goals in collaboration with the client and caregiver, the PSW, the client's PCP, and the other members of the IP team. The plan includes specific short-term and 6-month goals, a list of actions and referrals and a record of all recommendations. The results of the initial and ongoing assessment, and the client's response to treatment, are documented in the care plan and reviewed during each case conference. This includes documenting the client's level of adherence to the recommendations and reasons for non-adherence. The RN liaises with the client's PCP and other providers to initiate referrals to a comprehensive range of services and supports to address individual client needs. The RN alerts the PCP to the presence of depression, dementia, delirium using a standard letter, which is sent directly to the PCP requesting further assessment and treatment ( Figure 2). Outcome Evaluation The aim of the outcome evaluation is to examine the effect of the IP mental health promotion intervention on clinical outcomes among the target population. Variables and Measures Independent interviewers, blinded to the purpose of the study, assess participants at baseline (pre-test), and after the intervention (6 months) and again at 12 months (post-test) through a structured in-home interview lasting about one hour. Previous research suggests that 6months is an optimal time to assess the immediate effects while minimizing attrition rates. A follow-up assessment at 12-months will establish whether any significant change is maintained 6 months after the intervention has taken place (see Figure 2). Three interviewers, who are Registered Nurses with previous experience working in community-based settings, were trained in consent and data collection procedures. Training included orientation manuals, practice sessions, and inter-rater reliability testing. Overall agreement for categorical variables was very good (Kappa statistic = 0.80, CI:95% 0.76, 0.84) as was overall agreement for continuous variables (ICC = 0.96, CI: 95% 0.92, 0.99). Table 2 provides an overview of all outcome variables and measures used in the study. The primary outcome is the change in severity of depressive symptoms from baseline to 6 months as measured by the CES-D score. The CES-D has been used in prior studies of older adults with mood disorders, and has a high degree of reliability, content, construct and criterion related validity, distinguishes between depressed and non-depressed people, and is a sensitive tool for measuring changes in depressive symptoms over time in psychiatric populations. Previous research on the CES-D involving older adults yielded sensitivity of 92% and a specificity of 87% when compared to the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-III-R by using a cut-off point of 21 to distinguish older people with and without depressive symptoms. Secondary outcomes include changes in the following variables from baseline to 6 and 12 months: a) prevalence of depressive symptoms using a cut-off score of ≥ 21 on the CES-D, b) severity of anxiety measured by the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Screener (GAD-7) scale, c) prevalence of anxiety using a cut-off score of > 5 on the GAD-7 scale, d) rate and appropriateness of depression treatment (antidepressant medication use, use of psychiatrist or other specialized mental health services) measured by the Health and Social Services Utilization Inventory (HSSUI) , e) health-related quality of life measured by the SF-12v2 health survey, and f) cognitive impairment using a cut-off score of ≥ 24 on the SMMSE. These outcome measures were selected on the basis of their length, low level of burden, ease of administration, and reliability and validity in our previous homecare trials. Data Analyses Quantitative data will be cleaned, checked for out of range values, skip pattern problems and duplicates. Tests of normality will be completed to determine appropriateness of statistical methods. All analyses will be performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 19.0 for Windows on an intention-to-treat basis. All statistical tests will be performed using two-sided tests at the 0.05 level of significance. For all models, the results will be expressed as effect (or odds ratio for binary outcomes), standard errors, corresponding two-sided 95% confidence intervals (CI), and associated p-values. Descriptive analysis of demographic characteristics will be expressed as a mean (standard deviation ) or median (minimum-maximum) for continuous variables and count (percent) for categorical variables. The primary analysis to address the main outcome measure (change in mean scores from baseline to 6months in the severity of depressive symptoms) will be tested using analysis of covariance (with pre-intervention scores as covariates). The factors that predict the severity of depressive symptoms will be addressed using regression analysis with the change (6-month-baseline) in the CES-D score as the dependent variable. The predictor variable dose of the intervention (low, moderate, high), and potential confounding variables representing known risk factors for depression, will be included in the initial models. Model assumptions and goodness-offit will be assessed by examining the residuals for model assumptions and chi-squared test of goodness-of-fit or qqplots and Hosmer-Lemeshov tests for logistic regression models. We will assess multicollinearity by investigating associations among the confounding variables. For linear models, we will use the variate inflation factor (VIF) to assess collinearity. Variables having a VIF greater than 10 will be considered collinear and will be excluded from the analysis. The secondary hypothesis of change in the prevalence of depressive symptoms, anxiety, HRQOL, cognitive impairment, and the rate of depression treatment from baseline to 6 and 12 months, will be tested using multiple regression (or logistic regression for binary outcomes) using the same approach as in the primary analysis. The possibility of co-interventions occurring such as mental health-related counselling and support programs will also be monitored. We will also perform the following sensitivity analyses which will involve: a) use of multiple imputation to handle missing data, b) analysis of all outcomes analysed simultaneously using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) to account for correlation among them, c) longitudinal analysis of data using generalized estimating equations (GEE) to account for the serial correlation of all outcomes at baseline, 6 and 12 months within a subject, and d) clustering among individuals who live together. The GEE is a technique that specifies the correlation structure between participants. This approach produces unbiased estimates under the assumption that missing observations will be missing at random. An amended approach of weighted GEE will be employed if missingness is found not to be at random. We will assume an autoregressive AR correlation structure for the GEE analysis, which assumes that serial responses measured closer to each other are more correlated than those that are far apart. Economic Evaluation The aim of the economic evaluation is to determine the 6 and 12 month costs of use of health services associated with the intervention from a societal perspective, where all costs are assessed regardless of who bears them. A societal perspective is recommended for studies relevant to societal policy decisions. Variables and Measures The costs of use of all types of health services from baseline to 6 and 12 months will be determined using the HSSUI . The HSSUI consists of questions about the respondent's use of six categories of direct health care services: a) primary care, b) emergency department and specialists, c) hospital days, d) seven types of other health and social professionals, e) medications, and f) lab services. Inquiries were restricted to the reliable duration of recall: 6 months for remembering a hospitalization and a visit to the physician, and four days for use of a prescription medication. The 6-month cost data will be derived from "quantity" data reported on the HSSUI and 2009-2012 "price" data obtained by our team for the HSSUI . The product of the number of units of service (quantity) and unit cost (price) is total cost. The six month estimate can be multiplied by two to approximate the total health service utilization cost for Perceptions of Intervention by Intervention Providers Focus Group Interviews 6 and 18 months after initiation of the intervention T 1 : Baseline; T 2 : 6 months after baseline measures; T 3 : 12 months after baseline measures the 12 month follow-up period. The HSSUI has been previously tested and assessed for reliability and validity and is acknowledged as one of the few published measures of ambulatory utilization that is empirically validated. The costs of use of health services measured by the HSSUI will also include the costs associated with the delivery of the nurse-led intervention. Administrative data on the use of CCAC services will be used when applicable to validate the self-reported data. The HSSUI will be incorporated into the structured in-home interview at baseline, 6 and 12 months. Data Analyses We will conduct cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) on person level cost and effect data using net benefit regression. The dependent variable for the net benefit regression in this analysis will be nb which equals effect $cost where effect = improvement in CES-D, $ = the monetary value of each unit of effect and cost = the costs accrued over the study period. Different values of $ will be used to explore how sensitive the results are to assumptions about $. In the base case scenario, the dependent variable nb will be modelled as a function of the patient variables described above and a stochastic error term (). We will estimate the coefficient 0 in the regression nb = 0 + b x x + where x is a vector of patient variables that have been centred on their means, b x is a vector of their respective coefficient estimates, is a stochastic error term and 0 is an estimate of cost-effectiveness. When 0 > 0, the intervention is deemed to be cost-effective since the value of the extra benefit is greater than the extra cost. Net benefit regressions will be run for a variety of $ values and then the probability of cost-effectiveness will be plotted against values for $ on a cost-effectiveness acceptability curve. In this way, the research findings will allow different decision makers to use different preferred values of $. By placing the CEA in a regression framework, we will be able to use a wide variety of regression tools while exploring key patient characteristics and using regression model diagnostic tools. Process Evaluation The purpose of the process evaluation is to determine the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention. Assessment of feasibility determines whether the intervention can be successfully implemented to establish actual exposure to the intervention as it was intended, and to examine which components of the intervention were successful and which ones were not. Assessment of acceptability determines the suitability of the intervention from the perspective of the study participants and the intervention providers. Table 2 provides an overview of all process variables and measures used in the study. Variables and Measures Assessment of the feasibility of the intervention will include: a) the reach of the intervention, defined as the proportion of the intended target population that actually participated in the intervention, b) the dose delivered, defined as the number and duration of the home visits and case conferences during the 6-month intervention, and c) the level of fidelity to treatment (the extent to which the RNs and PSWs adhere to the components of the intervention). We are keeping a record of all clients who meet the eligibility criteria for the study to determine the recruitment rate and assess the reach of the intervention. Alphanumeric characteristics (age, gender, medical diagnosis, referral source) of the clients who are assessed as eligible for the study but refuse to participate will be collected at baseline to assess the representativeness of the sample. Data on the dose of the intervention and the RNs' and PSWs' actual adherence to the intervention will be gathered by the RNs and PSWs themselves by means of prospective selfreports. The RNs and PSWs will use the monthly visit and case conference record and the depression care booklet after each case conference to record which components of the intervention were applied. Each item will be scored as a done/not done binary variable (see Table 3 for the key intervention features that will be scored). Assessment of the acceptability of the intervention will include: a) the level of engagement to the intervention (the number of participants who receive at least one home visit over the 6-month period), b) perceptions of the intervention by study participants as measured by semi-structured interviews, and c) perceptions of the intervention by the intervention providers as measured by focus group interviews. Data on the perceptions of the intervention by study participants will be determined through the use of five open-ended questions during the final 12-month interview: "Which aspects of the nurseled program were most helpful to you?" "Which aspects of the nurse-led program were the least helpful to you?" "Which aspects of the nurse-led program have you continued to use?" "Which aspects of the nurse-led program haven't you continued to use?" "Would you recommend this program to other people?" The RNs and PSWs will be invited to a focus group interview at 6 and 18 months following initiation of the intervention to discuss their perceptions of the intervention, including the intervention components they perceive to be most and least helpful and to identify barriers and facilitators to implementation: "What aspects of the nurse-led intervention have worked well for clients and their families, home care providers, and the organization and system?" "What kinds of challenges have there been with respect to implementing the nurse-led intervention for clients and their families, home care providers, and the organization and system?" Data Analyses Study participants will be compared with clients who are assessed as eligible for the study but refuse to participate on their alphanumeric characteristics at baseline using independent t-tests for continuous variables and chi square for categorical variables. Descriptive analysis of the dose of the intervention will be expressed as the mean (standard deviation ) and range (minimummaximum) number of home visits and case conferences. Data on the RNs' and PSWs' actual adherence to the intervention will be categorized as the proportion of times each component of the intervention was implemented. Content analysis of the older home care clients' responses to the open-ended questions will be used to analyse the qualitative data. Participant answers will be sorted into categories and themes. Descriptive analysis will be performed for the frequency of the answers for each question. The focus groups will be digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim by an experienced transcriptionist and checked for accuracy by a Research Assistant. Qualitative data will be managed using N-VIVO 8 software. Three of the investigators (MMR, CM, DF) will systematically review all transcripts and inductively generate a list of codes by hand describing themes. The codes will be grouped into themes (a higher conceptual level) and sub-themes. The investigators will use a constant comparison approach to interpret data. This will involve reviewing coded data that supported themes and continually referring to previously coded sections for comparison. By comparing and contrasting the coded data, sub-themes, themes, interrelationships and patterns will be revealed. Differences of opinion will be discussed until agreement is reached. Discussion In this paper we describe the background, design and methods of an ongoing prospective study of the effectiveness of a nurse-led, IP mental health promotion intervention aimed at older home care clients with depressive symptoms. This research has two important innovative aspects. First, this is the first study that investigates the effectiveness of a 6-month nurse-led, IP mental health promotion intervention among this population. Studies on the effectiveness of nurse-led mental health promotion interventions in home care have involved short-term screening and referral for depression rather than ongoing treatment and regular follow-up care over a 6-month period. Second, it is the first study to investigate the effectiveness of such an intervention among at-risk seniors with depressive symptoms using PSS, as opposed to the general population of seniors using home care services. Such individuals are considerably frailer than the general population of seniors receiving home care services and are often excluded from community-based studies. Thus, this study will make an important contribution by providing knowledge of the effectiveness of a nurse-led mental health promotion intervention among a more vulnerable group of older home care clients than recruited in previous studies. Stratifying individuals into different levels of risk is important from a clinical and economic perspective because those at greatest risk are more likely to benefit from preventive efforts and can be targeted specifically. Our primary hypothesis is that a nurse-led IP mental health intervention offered to older home care clients with depressive symptoms, will result in a reduction in the severity of depressive symptoms, and will pay for itself because the cost of the health care resources related to the intervention will be offset by a lower cost of use of other expensive health care resources. For example, in Canada, hospital costs constitute the largest component of health care expenditures for depression, at approximately $3.8 billion dollars per year. An older person with depression has a 25% chance of being hospitalized within one year, with the average acute care cost of treatment of about $21,800 per person with depression. Based on previous research, we expect to decrease the average use of acute hospitalization by 17% in the 250 participants receiving the nurse-led approach, which translates into a cost savings of 43 people $21,800 = $937,400 in the same year due to prevention of acute hospitalization for depression; this by itself should create enough savings to pay for the intervention. However, to determine if our hypothesis is correct, we will examine costs expended as well as costs averted by all sectors of society (e.g., beyond acute care hospital costs), to reflect a societal perspective. If our hypothesis is correct, we will conclude that a nurse-led IP mental health promotion intervention, proactively provided to older home care clients with depressive symptoms, reduces depressive symptoms and enhances health-related quality of life at no more cost to society as a whole, thus making the intervention highly feasible given its clinical benefits. The results of this project will provide evidence for the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of an innovative model of service delivery that has the potential to significantly improve the quality of life of older home care clients with depressive symptoms and reduce demand for health services achieved by: improving the recognition and management of depressive symptoms; linking home care, primary healthcare, and specialized mental health services; facilitating effective IP collaboration and teamwork; facilitating timely access to depression-related care and services; promoting adoption of best practice guideline recommendations for depression care; providing regular follow-up care and treatment over 6 months; developing and implementing standardized prevention, education, and screening protocols; and expanding health care provider knowledge and skills in depression care, chronic disease management, and IP collaboration. The results of this research will add to the accumulating evidence that early, proactive, and comprehensive care for older adults with chronic needs is both more effective and no more expensive in a system of national health insurance than providing services on a limited, reactive, and piecemeal basis. The results will also provide information about the processes and strategies that foster: effective IP collaboration, use of best practice depression guideline recommendations, and integration and coordination of home care, primary healthcare, and depression-related services for this population. The knowledge gained from this research will be made available to decision-makers and clinicians to inform policy and practice related to the allocation and delivery of services for the prevention, early identification, and management of depression among older home care clients. These findings will have application in other home care and community-based practice settings. Many older adults using PSS are "at-risk" for depression, but the rate of depression and depression risk factors have not been previously investigated in this population. Our results will provide information on the prevalence, determinants and costs of depressive symptoms among older home care clients using PSS. On the basis of previous research among a general population of older home care clients, we expect that depression will be highly prevalent in this population and associated with poor health-related quality of life, low social support, and higher use of health services. We also hypothesize that depression in this population will be largely untreated or undertreated. The two step screening and recruitment process may identify seniors who would not in the normal course of events have received any treatment for their depression, thus highlighting the importance of incorporating screening into routine clinical practice. Improving understanding of the prevalence of depression will help to raise awareness of the important role of home care in recognizing, managing, and reducing depression in this population. Knowledge about risk factors for depression among older adults using PSS, can be used to guide the allocation of scarce home care resources to those most likely to benefit from preventive efforts. Several limitations to this study should be noted. First, the single study site may limit generalizability of our findings. Second, there is no comparison group in the one group pre-test post-test design. Third, sampling bias may influence the results, as those who volunteer to participate may have been more likely to be receptive to the intervention. We will assess the extent of nonresponse bias by comparing the characteristics of study participants to those who decline participation in the study on their alphanumeric characteristics at baseline. In addition, those eligible clients who refuse to enter the study will be asked about their reasons for refusing to take part in the study. Content analysis of these factors will be conducted to provide feedback to guide refinement of the intervention to make it suitable to those who did not participate. Fourth, clinical depression was not evaluated in this study; in future studies, it would be important to include a structured clinical interview to confirm a DSM-IV based diagnosis of major or minor depression versus depressive symptoms. Lastly, the use of a proxy respondent as a source of data for the study participants with limitations in cognition, physical health or language, may result in either an overestimation or an underestimation of the results. The design of an effective real-world model for implementing a nurse-led IP mental health promotion intervention that can be implemented in clinical practice, reach the target population, be effective across diverse providers and settings, and be able to be maintained over time, will require attention to four key challenges that will be addressed in this study. The first challenge centres on the need to reach those older home care clients most likely to benefit from the nurseled intervention. Our inclusion criteria will identify older adults who are at risk of developing depression and thus, most likely to benefit from the intervention. It is expected that through the use of a minimal or less restrictive set of selection criteria, we will increase the heterogeneity of our sample. For example, we will include older home care clients who have co-morbid medical conditions and dementia that have typically been excluded from community-based trials. This heterogeneity will improve the representativeness of the sample, so that the variability in older home care clients seen in everyday practice is reflected thereby, enhancing the generalizability and clinical applicability of the research findings. Subgroup analysis is planned to examine the influence of participant characteristics on the outcomes. The analysis is intended to investigate who with what characteristics benefits most at what expense, from the intervention. This will be accomplished in two steps. In the first step, the pattern of change in the outcome level is estimated for each participant. In the second step, inter-individual differences in the pattern of change will be examined in relation to participant characteristics and receipt of the intervention. The results can be used to inform implementation of the program in other settings by enabling home care agencies to tailor the intervention to individual needs and to target scarce resources to those most likely to benefit from the intervention. The problems related to recruitment and retention of older adults in research are well documented. To address recruitment barriers, we utilize clear but simple communication of study procedures, risks, and potential benefits; we give the client the time needed to decide; we have a clear protocol for contacting potential participants and flexible scheduling; and we educate unpaid caregivers about the study (with the client's agreement) if the client wants extra support, even if the patient is able to make a decision for themselves. Tymchuk and Ouslander wrote of the need to orient or prepare the client to receive information from the researcher prior to the actual explanation of the research. In this study, this stage is considered vital and involves determining if the client has any cognitive or communication difficulties. Awareness of any communication difficulties or cognitive limitations prior to the initial contact enables action to address and compensate for these challenges from the outset. To enhance retention, interviewers build rapport and trust with the participants; the study coordinator uses a participant-tracking plan and the interviewers maintain between-assessment contacts with participants. A week before each interview, a reminder letter is mailed to the client's home. Three days before the scheduled visit, the interviewer phones to remind participants of the data collection visit. Participants are also compensated for their time ($15 after the baseline interview and $10 for the 6-month interview). On a monthly basis, Case Manager recruiters and interviewers meet with the principal investigator to discuss recruitment and data collection procedures. These meetings have been instrumental in identifying recruitment and data collection problems. It has resulted in clarification of inclusion criteria, data collection procedures, and suggestions for additional strategies for recruitment and retention. The second challenge centres on the need to assess the feasibility of the intervention within the local context. It is expected and will be accepted that the intervention protocol may require some adaptation to accommodate client's needs and the unique characteristics of the local context, which will result in variation in the intervention components and dose to which participants are actually exposed. It is therefore important that the processes and outcomes of intervention adaptation be described and systematically evaluated. We are closely monitoring intervention delivery including the components of the intervention that were applied and the dose of the intervention that each participant actually received. Monitoring intervention implementation will provide data on the extent to which the intervention that was received deviates from the intervention as designed. This information will be used to determine the key components and adaptable components of the intervention, thus facilitating future dissemination. In addition, these data will be used to operationalize the intervention in the outcome analysis. That is, the intervention is represented by the actual dose received (number of home visits and case conferences). The outcome analysis consists of examining the relationship between the intervention dose and the level of fidelity to treatment and changes in the outcome scores from pre-test to post-test. This type of analysis accounts for variability in intervention implementation, which increases the statistical power to detect significant effects, facilitates a dose-response relationship, and enhances the clinical relevance of the study results. The results will also allow informed speculation on the mechanism through which the intervention improves outcomes. The third challenge centres on the need to determine the acceptability of the intervention or the willingness of clients and health care providers to adopt or use the intervention. Health promotion and disease prevention strategies need to be acceptable to the older adult receiving the intervention and the health care provider delivering the intervention. Thus, we will evaluate the experiences of the study participants and health care providers with the intervention, to determine the feasibility and acceptability of a wider implementation of the intervention. This will include providing empirical evidence on the facilitating and limiting factors that could influence effective use of the nurse-led intervention. We will also monitor the level of client adherence to the plan of care to determine the degree of uptake of the intervention. The final challenge centres on the need to determine the sustainability of the intervention. This concerns whether or not the program will produce long-term behavioural change and whether organizations will sustain the program over time. We will examine both the immediate 6-month and the 12-month effect of the intervention in order to provide information on the sustainability of the intervention effects over time. The results will also provide information on when the intervention becomes effective. The nurse-led intervention was designed and is delivered using existing home care services and supports. The organizations partnering in this research have demonstrated shared commitment for planning, implementation, and evaluation, shared vision and objectives, infrastructure support, stakeholder engagement and buy-in, and strong leadership support in the development of this nurse-led model. These are all essential factors that will contribute to the development of a practical, transferrable and sustainable practice model in this population. The research will build capacity in depression care and foster collaborative partnerships across the geriatric mental health care delivery system that will further enhance the sustainability of the intervention. Attending to these challenges may ultimately serve to enhance the relevance of the study results to clinicians and policy makers, and to help reduce the research-practice gap. the final manuscript. LT supervised the statistical analyses, JSH supervised the economic analyses, and all authors had full access to the data. |
Carl Tanner has gone from a high-school football player singing in the shower to a bounty hunter packing heat to an opera tenor wowing audiences around the world--and has remained an Arlington kid all the while.
Carl Tanner has performed to packed houses all over the world. But offstage, he's not what you'd expect. Before he became an opera singer, he walked around Virginia with a sawed-off shotgun outside his jacket, a nine-millimeter Beretta at his waist, and a .25-caliber pistol in an ankle holster. He listens more to Cyndi Lauper and Celine Dion than to Pavarotti.
His linebacker's frame is topped with shiny blond hair. When he tells a story, he adopts the accents of its characters: "Goddamn, did you sound beautiful. One great motha—–." That's a well-known mobster praising him on a late-night performance in a New York bar. Or "Brrravo, Carl! Wonderful!" That's Washington National Opera director Plácido Domingo backstage during last year's Il Trovatore.
This month, Tanner is the lead tenor in the opera's production of Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila at the Kennedy Center. He'll spend the rest of the year zipping from one country to the next–Turandot in Santa Fe and Dresden; Andrea Chénier in Tokyo.
"When people ask me where I go for vacation," he says, "I tell them home."
Home for the 43-year-old has always been Arlington. He grew up in the Cherrydale neighborhood and now has a house in nearby Westover.
At Washington-Lee High School, he was known for his football prowess. The only time he sang was in the shower. One afternoon in his junior year, after a spirited rendition of Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel," a friend who lived next door came by.
"I heard you singing," she said. "I know you're into football and all that, but you should join the choir."
Tanner had studied violin and appeared opposite classmate Sandra Bullock in a school musical, but he'd never taken music seriously. The next year, when an injury sidelined his football career, he gave the choir a go. The director told Tanner his voice wouldn't fit in the choir–he'd be better as a soloist.
His first performance was singing "O Holy Night" at the school's Christmas concert. As the crowd gave him a standing ovation, he remembers "a voice in my head was like 'This is what you're meant to do.' "
From then on, people stopped calling him the football player and started calling him the singer.
Tanner got a degree from Virginia's Shenandoah Conservatory, but he didn't think he was good enough to make it in the opera world. He drove a truck before a friend suggested they could make more money as bounty hunters.
He learned how to fire a gun. He printed business cards and passed them out to bondsmen. He walked around with a sawed-off shotgun and plenty of other firepower.
The money flowed in. But then, in the summer of 1990, Tanner saw one of his targets jump from a window and get electrocuted on a power line.
Two weeks later, a teenager he was chasing fired 17 shots at him. The kid missed, and as Tanner lectured him during the ride to the police station about life choices, he started thinking about his own.
A few months later, Tanner headed to New York City with $73 and a dream of becoming a professional tenor.
He got a job singing at an Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village. One night, the director of the Santa Fe Opera was there and offered him an audition for a lead role the next summer. Tanner got the part.
Then came roles in Carmen with the Rome Opera and Tosca with the New National Theater of Japan. Last June, he made his first appearance at La Scala. Now he's booked through 2007, when he'll make his debut at the Metropolitan Opera.
Last Christmas, Tanner sang "O Holy Night" at the lighting of the national Christmas tree.
"Wait," President Bush said. "You're the bounty hunter?" He pointed his fingers like a gun. "Pow! Pow! I want to talk about that." |
Tmax Volumes Predict Final Infarct Size and Functional Outcome in Ischemic Stroke Patients Receiving Endovascular Treatment Objective The objective of this paper was to explore the utility of time to maximum concentration (Tmax)based target mismatch on computed tomography perfusion (CTP) in predicting radiological and clinical outcomes in patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) with anterior circulation large vessel occlusion (LVO) selected for endovascular treatment (EVT). Methods Patients with AIS underwent CTP within 24 hours from onset followed by EVT. Critically hypoperfused tissue and ischemic core volumes were automatically calculated using Tmax thresholds >9.5 seconds and >16seconds, respectively. The difference between Tmax>9.5 seconds and Tmax>16seconds volumes and the ratio between Tmax>9.5 seconds and Tmax>16seconds volumes were considered ischemic penumbra and Tmax mismatch ratio, respectively. Final infarct volume (FIV) was measured on followup noncontrast computed tomography (CT) at 24 hours. Favorable clinical outcome was defined as 90day modified Rankin Scale 0 to 2. Predictors of FIV and outcome were assessed with multivariable logistic regression. Optimal Tmax volumes for identification of good outcome was defined using receiver operating curves. Results A total of 393 patients were included, of whom 298 (75.8%) achieved successful recanalization and 258 (65.5%) achieved good outcome. In multivariable analyses, all Tmax parameters were independent predictors of FIV and outcome. Tmax >16seconds volume had the strongest association with FIV (beta coefficient = 0.596 p <0.001) and good outcome (odds ratio = 0.96 per 1 ml increase, 95% confidence interval = 0.950.97, p <0.001). Tmax >16seconds volume had the highest discriminative ability for good outcome (area under the curve = 0.88, 95% CI = 0.8420.909). A Tmax >16seconds volume of ≤67ml best identified subjects with favorable outcome (sensitivity = 0.91 and specificity = 0.73). Interpretation Tmax target mismatch predicts radiological and clinical outcomes in patients with AIS with LVO receiving EVT within 24 hours from onset. ANN NEUROL 2022;91:878888 95% CI = 0.842-0.909). A T max > 16 seconds volume of ≤67 ml best identified subjects with favorable outcome (sensitivity = 0.91 and specificity = 0.73). Interpretation: T max target mismatch predicts radiological and clinical outcomes in patients with AIS with LVO receiving EVT within 24 hours from onset. ANN NEUROL 2022;91:878-888 A growing body of data suggest that computed tomography perfusion (CTP) is a useful tool for the selection of patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) with anterior circulation large vessel occlusion (LVO) for endovascular treatment (EVT). 1 A favorable CTP profile was successfully used to establish the eligibility for EVT of patients with AIS with LVO in 2 late time window (6-24 hours) randomized controlled trials (RCTs), namely DEFUSE 3 (Endovascular Therapy Following Imaging Evaluation for Ischemic Stroke) 2 and DAWN (Triage of Wake-up and Late Presenting Strokes Undergoing Neurointervention With Trevo), 3 and in 2 early time window (0-6 hours) RCTs, namely SWIFT PRIME (Solitaire With the Intention for Thrombectomy as Primary Endovascular Treatment) 4 and EXTEND-IA (Extending the Time for Thrombolysis in Emergency Neurological Deficits-Intra-Arterial). 5 In all these four CTPguided RCTs, 2-5 patients with AIS were selected for therapy if meeting inclusion criteria consisting of a combination of parameters collectively called target mismatch. Although cutoff values of target mismatch varied across these studies, they were always automatically calculated with a dedicated software (RAPID; Rapid Processing of Perfusion and Diffusion; iSchemaView, Menlo Park, CA), based on the assumption that critically hypoperfused tissue is indicated by absolute time to the peak of the residual function (time to maximum concentration ) threshold values more than 6 seconds (T max > 6 seconds) and ischemic core corresponds to relative cerebral blood flow (rCBF) threshold values less than 30% of normally perfused tissue (rCBF < 30%). In this model, the difference between T max > 6 seconds and rCBF < 30% volumes (T max -CBF mismatch) represents ischemic penumbra, whereas the ratio between T max > 6 and rCBF < 30% volume is the mismatch ratio. Of note, CTP-based and non CTP-based RCTs shared the same limitation, a suboptimal patient selection as reflected by rates of functional dependency of around 50% despite successful recanalization. 2,3,6 Recent publications that use the GE CTP 4D show that a T max value >16 seconds optimally identified follow-up infarct when non-contrast CT (NCCT) to recanalization time was within 90 minutes versus a T max value >9.5 seconds that identified follow-up infarct best when early reperfusion was not achieved. 7 Thus, in patients who achieved recanalization >90 minutes after NCCT T max > 16 seconds can be presumed to be the critically hypoperfused tissue. The difference between T max > 9.5 seconds and T max > 16 seconds volumes (T max -T max mismatch) can therefore be operationally considered as penumbra. T max is a relatively robust parameter to measure on CTP. The aim of the present study was to assess the utility of this T max based mismatch paradigm in predicting imaging and clinical outcomes. Additionally, this analysis sought to identify the optimal T max volume thresholds that would identify patients with favorable functional outcome on follow-up. Patients and Methods This cohort study was approved by the local ethics boards of each participating site in which CT scans were performed and clinical information were recorded during routine clinical activity. Written informed consent was obtained from each patient or from their legally authorized representatives at admission or waived by the institutional review board. Patient Selection This was a retrospective analysis conducted on a prospectively collected cohort of consecutive patients with AIS with anterior circulation LVO treated with EVT and admitted from January 2013 to July 2017 at 2 academic Italian centers: S. Anna University Hospital of Ferrara and Careggi University Hospital of Florence. At both institutions, all patients presenting with suspected AIS with LVO, and no history of renal failure or contrast allergy routinely undergo NCCT, CT angiography (CTA) of the cervical and intracranial vessels and CTP at admission if they arrive at the hospital within 24 hours of symptom onset. If diagnosis of AIS is confirmed by neuroimaging findings, patients with AIS receive EVT according to the current recommended guidelines. 8,9 Patients were included if they presented to the emergency department with the following criteria: NCCT Alberta Stroke Programme Early Computed Tomography Score (ASPECTS) ≥ 6; diagnosis of AIS within 24 hours from witnessed symptom onset or time last seen well; evidence of internal carotid artery (ICA) and/or middle cerebral artery (MCA) M1 or M2 segment occlusion on CTA; CTP performed at admission; selected for receiving EVT; and follow-up NCCT imaging performed at 24 hours. Exclusion criteria were: NCCT ASPECTS < 6; age < 18 years; pregnancy; severe pre-stroke disability defined as modified Rankin Scale (mRS) ≥3; detection of intracerebral hemorrhage on admission NCCT; contraindications to iodinated contrast agent; poor quality of CT acquisition due to motion artifacts; and inability to complete multimodal CT protocol at baseline and/or 24-hour follow-up NCCT. NCCT ASPECTS (ASPECTS ≥ 6) was used for establishing patient eligibility for EVT before publication of the 2015 American Hospital Association / American Society of Anesthesiologists (AHA/ASA) guidelines, 9 based on the analysis by Puez and colleagues. 10 As suggested in the 2013 AHA/ASA guidelines, 8 CTP was used to provide additional information regarding diagnosis. No patient was excluded from the study due to a CTP unfavorable profile because CTP was not performed in patients with low ASPECTS (NCCT ASPECTS < 6). Figure S1 illustrates the cohort selection process. Clinical Assessment Demographic and clinical variables were collected by investigators blinded to the outcomes of interest. In particular, we obtained data on age, sex, pre-stroke functional status (mRS), known versus unknown stroke onset time, intravenous fibrinolysis with recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (r-TPA), time from onset to baseline CT, and time from baseline CT to EVT conclusion. Baseline stroke severity was measured with the National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS). Clinical outcome was measured using mRS at 3 months. The mRS ≤ 2 and >2 were defined as good and poor outcome, respectively. Imaging Acquisition All imaging was conducted on 64-slice scanners (GE Healthcare, Waukesha, WI). NCCT helical scans were performed from the skull base to the vertex using the following imaging parameters: 120 kV, 340 mA, 4 5-mm collimation, 1 second/rotation, and table speed of 15 mm/rotation. CTA of the cervical and intracranial vessels was performed as follows: 0.7 ml/kg contrast (maximum 90 ml), 5-to 10-second delay from injection to scanning, 120 kV, 270 mA, 1 second/rotation, 1.25-mm thick slices, and table speed 3.75 mm/rotation. CTA covered from the carotid bifurcation to vertex. CTP studies were obtained with a dynamic first-pass bolus-tracking methodology according to a 2-phase imaging protocol, to avoid the truncation of time density curves, with axial shuttle mode. The 2-phase acquisition consisted of a first phase every 2.8 seconds for 60 seconds and an additional second phase every 15 seconds for 90 seconds, which started 5 seconds after the automatic injection of 40 ml of non-ionic contrast agent followed by a saline flush of 40 ml at the rate of 4 ml/s. Sections of 8 cm thickness were acquired at 5 mm slice thickness. The other acquisition parameters were 80 kV, 140 mAs, and 0.5 rotation time. All CTP source images were reconstructed with the standard filter and display field of view (DFOV) of 25 cm. Imaging Processing and Analysis The extent of early ischemic changes was evaluated on baseline NCCT using the ASPECTS methodology. 10 Each CTP study was processed by commercially available delay-insensitive deconvolution software (CT Perfusion 4D; GE Healthcare), as described elsewhere. 7 In-plane patient motion was corrected using an automated registration program included in the software, and the images with extreme motion at specific time points were manually removed, as needed, by visual inspection of the cine series and time density curve (TDC). For each study, the TDC for the arterial input function (AIF) and for venous output function (VOF) were measured from the basilar artery, ICA, or anterior cerebral artery and from the superior sagittal sinus, respectively using a 2 voxel 2 voxel (in-slice) regions of interest (ROIs). The VOF-TDC was used to correct for partial volume averaging in the AIF. CBF, cerebral blood volume (CBV), and T max maps were generated for each patient by deconvolving the AIF from tissue TDCs. CBF, CBV, and T max values were expressed in mlmin 1 (100 g) 1, ml(100 g) 1 and seconds, respectively. Average CTP maps were created by averaging the cine (dynamic) CTP source images over the duration of the first pass of contrast. These average CTP images were used to exclude cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and skull from analysis using Hounsfield unit (HU) thresholds. Large blood vessels were automatically excluded from calculation by the software. Critically hypoperfused tissue and ischemic core volumes were defined as ischemic brain regions with T max values >9.5 seconds and >16 seconds, respectively, and were automatically segmented and calculated by the software (Figure 1). According to the T max target mismatch paradigm, 2,4,5 the difference between T max > 9.5 seconds and T max > 16 secondsvolumes (T max mismatch) was considered as ischemic penumbra, and the ratio between T max > 9.5 seconds and T max > 16 seconds volumes was defined as the T max mismatch ratio. Occlusion sites were identified on CTA and classified as cervical ICA, terminal ICA, middle cerebral artery (MCA) M1 segment, or MCA M2 segment occlusions. CTA collateral supply was graded on a 4-point scale according to a previously published scoring system in which collaterals were categorized as absent (score 0), >0% but ≤50% (score 1), >50% but <100% (score 2) and 100% (score 3) of the occluded territory. 11 Recanalization was assessed on conventional digital subtraction angiography (DSA) at the end of endovascular therapy using the modified treatment in cerebral ischemia (mTICI) scale. 12 Patients with mTICI score of 2b or 3 were considered as successfully recanalized, whereas patients with mTICI score ranging from 0 to 2a were classified as not.. The utility of different T max volumes and T max mismatch ratio for identification of patients with good functional outcome was analyzed using area under the curve (AUC) Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves and optimal sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive values identified using the Youden Index. Comparison of models with T max > 9.5 seconds, T max > 16 seconds, mismatch volume and mismatch ratios as independent variables and the mRS 0 to 2 at 90 days as dependent variable was performed using the DeLong test. 15 A secondary analysis was focused on subjects presenting after 6 hours from symptom onset or time last seen well, with the same outcomes of interest explored in the main analysis. In this subgroup of patients, the model building strategy was the same as in the main analyses. Finally, a sensitivity analysis explored the diagnostic performance of T max parameters in patients who achieved mTICI (2b/3) post EVT versus those achieving mTICI ≤ 2a. All analyses were performed with the statistical packages SPSS version 21.0 (www.spss.com) and MedCalc (www.medcalc.org). Statistical significance was set at two-sided p < 0.05. Results We screened 477 potentially eligible patients with AIS with anterior circulation LVO, of whom 84 patients were excluded due to the presence of low ASPECTS (<6) on baseline NCCT, baseline intracerebral hemorrhage (n = 19), inability to complete multimodal CT protocol at baseline and/or 24-hour follow-up NCCT (n = 15), poor quality of CT acquisition due to motion artifacts (n = 12), contraindications to iodinated contrast agent (known contrast allergy, renal failure) (n = 8), pre-stroke mRS >3 (n = 5), pregnancy (n = 3), and < 18 of age (n = 2). The study selection flowchart is illustrated in Figure S1. Overall, 393 patients (median age = 73, IQR = 65-78, 54.7% men, median NIHSS = 14, IQR = 10-20) met study eligibility criteria. Of these, 314 were selected for EVT in the early (<6 hours) and 79 in the late (6-24 hours) time windows. Most of the included patients had a middle cerebral artery occlusion in the M1 segment and around one third of the study population received r-TPA before EVT. Table 1 summarizes the patient characteristics and shows the comparison between patients with good and poor functional outcome at 3 months. In univariable analyses, patients with good prognosis had lower T max > 9.5 seconds volumes, T max > 16 seconds volumes, T max mismatch volumes, and higher T max mismatch ratio. As shown in Table 2, all these associations between T max parameters and clinical outcome remained significant in multivariable logistic regression analysis after adjustment for potential confounders. No statistically significant interaction was noted among T max > 9.5 seconds volume, T max > 16 seconds volume, and reperfusion time or reperfusion status in association with 90 day clinical outcome (all p values for interaction > 0.1). Conversely, the association between T max mismatch volume and outcome was significant only in patients with time from CT to reperfusion <165 minutes (p value for interaction < 0.001). Moreover, T max mismatch ratio predicted functional outcome only in patients achieving a mTICI score of 2b/3 (p for interaction = 0.017). The ROC curve analysis shown in Figure 2 demonstrated that T max > 16 seconds volume had the highest discriminative ability (AUC 0.878; 95% confidence interval = 0.842-0.909) for 90 day clinical outcome. When T max volumes and T max mismatch ratio were analyzed as dichotomous variables, the optimal cutoff points for predicting favorable 90-day clinical outcome were ≤111.6 ml for T max > 9.5 seconds, ≤67.0 ml for T max > 16 seconds, ≤58.3 ml for T max mismatch volume, and >2.5 for T max mismatch ratio. T max > 16 seconds volume ≤67.0 ml had the highest sensitivity (0.91; 95% CI = 0.87-0.94) for identification of subjects with favorable 90-day clinical outcome, whereas T max > 9.5 seconds volume ≤111.6 ml showed the highest specificity (0.82; 95% CI = 0.74-0.88). The test characteristics of different T max volumes are summarized in Table 3. In a secondary analysis stratified by mTICI status, results remained consistent. In particular, T max > 16 secondsvolume ≤67.0 ml remained the most sensitive (>0.90) parameter for the identification of patients with good prognosis, regardless of the degree of recanalization (Table S1). As illustrated in Table 4, T max > 9.5 seconds volume, T max > 16 seconds volume, T max mismatch volume and T max mismatch ratio were all associated with the extent of FIV in unadjusted analysis. All T max variables remained independently associated with FIV (p < 0.001) FIGURE 3: T max volumes in 2 patients with AIS and anterior circulation large vessel occlusion. Panel A: NCCT at admission, color coded CTP T max map with scale set at 9.6 to 25 seconds, Color coded CTP T max map with scale set at 16.1 to 25 seconds, T max > 9.5 seconds volume automatically segmented on CTP averaged images, T max > 16 seconds volume automatically segmented on CTP averaged images and NCCT at 24 hours in a 48 year-old patient with AIS and ischemic lesion in left MCA territory who presented the following T max parameters: critically hypoperfused tissue = 39.5 ml; core volume = 8.7 ml; penumbra volume = 30.8 ml; and mismatch ratio = 4.5. FIV was 7.2 ml and mRS at 3 months was 0. Panel B: NCCT at admission, color coded CTP T max map with scale set at 9.6 to 25 seconds, Color coded CTP T max map with scale set at 16.1 to 25 seconds, T max >9.5 seconds volume automatically segmented on CTP averaged images, T max >16 seconds volume automatically segmented on CTP averaged images and NCCT at 24 hours with hemorrhagic transformation in a 67 year old patient with AIS and ischemic lesion in left MCA territory who presented the following T max parameters: critically hypoperfused tissue = 158.0 ml; core volume = 87.4 ml; penumbra volume = 70.6 ml; mismatch ratio = 1.8. FIV was 131.2 ml and mRS at 3 months was 4. AIS = acute ischemic stroke; CTP = computed tomography perfusion; FIV = final infarct volume; MCA = middle cerebral artery; mRS = modified Rankin Scale; NCCT = non-contrast computed tomography; T max = time to maximum concentration. in multivariable linear regression (Table 5). When the analysis was restricted to 79 patients presenting 6 hours from stroke onset, of whom 47 (59.5%) had favorable functional outcome, the discriminative ability of T max volumes and T max mismatch volume remained good (T max > 9.5 seconds volume, AUC 0.86, p < 0.001; T max > 16 seconds volume AUC 0.88, p < 0.001; T max mismatch volume AUC 0.74, p < 0.001; T max mismatch ratio AUC 0.77, p < 0.001). In this subgroup of patients, the optimal value for predicting good outcome was similar to that obtained in overall analyses with T max > 9.5 seconds volume (≤114.4 ml, sensitivity 0.72, specificity 0.84), T max > 16 secondsvolume (≤67.4 ml, sensitivity 0.89, and specificity 0.75) and T max mismatch ratio (>2.8, sensitivity 0.62 and specificity 0.84), whereas T max mismatch volume was lower than overall analysis (≤47.1 ml, sensitivity 0.53, and specificity 0.84). T max > 9.5 seconds volume ≤ 114.4, ml and T max > 16 seconds volume ≤ 67.4 ml were the most reliable parameters for identification of patients with favorable clinical outcome, with highest sensitivity (89%) and specificity (84%), respectively. Logistic and linear regression models showed that all T max parameters remained independently associated with functional outcome and FIV in these late presenters, except for the lack of association between T max mismatch ratio and outcome at 90 days (odds ratio = 1.11; 95% CI = 0.86-1.43; p = 0.431). Two illustrative cases showing the application of T max volumes based on the established thresholds of >9.5 seconds and >16 secondsare depicted in Figure 3. Discussion The main finding of this study is that multiple CTP Tmax parameters are independently associated with functional outcome and with final infarct extent in patients with AIS undergoing EVT for LVO. In the context of RCTs showing the effectiveness of EVT in patients with AIS with LVO, CTP provided additional value in the early time window 1,4 and was mandatory in the late time window 2,3 for patients' selection. Inclusion criteria in these RCTs were based on the assumption that T max > 6 seconds and rCBF < 30% threshold values represented critically hypoperfused tissue and ischemic core, respectively, and could be used to select patients for EVT. However, the identification of patients likely to benefit from EVT remains suboptimal as 50% of patients with AIS receiving successful reperfusion do not achieve a good functional outcome. 2,3,6 A recent study suggested that critically hypoperfused tissue and ischemic core could be better defined by T max > 9.5 seconds and T max > 16 seconds threshold values (GE CTP4D), respectively. 7 Our findings expand this previous observation demonstrating the ability of these parameters to predict radiological and clinical outcomes. Our results are in line with previous investigations showing that in patients with AIS who underwent EVT < 6 hours 16 and 6-16 hours 17 after symptom onset/ last known well time, ischemic core and hypoperfusion volumes were associated with FIV. In addition, as in a prior work on patients receiving EVT < 6 hours from onset, 18 we also confirm that the 2 variables indicating penumbra size, namely, T max mismatch volumes and T max mismatch ratio, predict FIV. The inclusion in our analysis of both patients who achieved reperfusion, in whom penumbral tissue is presumed to be saved, and patients who did not achieve reperfusion, in whom penumbra evolves into infarct, could in part explain our results. More interesting was the demonstration that T max > 9.5 seconds volumes, T max > 16 seconds volumes, T max mismatch volumes, and T max mismatch ratio were associated 90-day good outcome. This association was in line with data from RCTs 1-4 and other studies suggesting that patients with AIS with favorable target mismatch profile achieved a good response to EVT. In this setting, the high predictive value of T max > 9.5 seconds and the poor performance of T max mismatch ratio for favorable outcome are not unexpected. Whereas T max > 9.5 seconds volume represents critically hypoperfused tissue, including both ischemic core and ischemic penumbra, which strongly correlates with good prognosis, prior evidence suggests that mismatch ratios cannot be considered as robust markers of favorable outcome. 21 It is important to highlight that T max volumes and mismatch ratio were associated with FIV and 90 day clinical outcomes independently from NIHSS, recanalization, and collateral score, which are considered strong predictors of radiological and clinical outcomes. In particular, T max parameters and collaterals predicted outcome independently from each other, suggesting that T max is not an epiphenomenon of collateral extent, but a complementary marker of delay in vessel filling of ischemic tissue. 22 The optimal cutoffs for T max parameters that predict good clinical outcome are similar to those in previous studies: a hypoperfusion volume ≤ 111.6 ml was comparable to the optimal value selected in DEFUSE 2 (<100 ml), 23 whereas an infarct volume ≤ 67.0 ml was similar to a cutoff point used in EXTEND-IA 5 and DEFUSE 3 2 (<70 ml). A penumbra volume ≤ 58.3 ml was very different from the cut-off values used in EXTEND-IA 5 (>10 ml), and in DEFUSE 3 2 and SWIFT PRIME 4 (>15 ml), but in agreement with the concept that a RAPID T max > 8 seconds volume > 85 mL 24 indicates a malignant profile reflecting severely hypoperfused tissue destined to progress into infarction. A T max mismatch ratio >2.5 in this analysis was higher than the thresholds used in SWIFT PRIME (>1.2), 4 and in EXTEND-IA 5 and DEFUSE 3 2 (>1.8), but equivalent to the value proposed by other investigators (>2.6) 21 who recommended a larger mismatch ratio for better detecting the benefit of reperfusion therapies. Optimal thresholds to discriminate good outcome did not substantially change when the subset of patients presenting in the late time window were examined. Taken together, these data suggest that the possibility of achieving a favorable outcome increases in the presence of a small ischemic core volume, a significant mismatch between the extent of core and hypoperfusion, and a large, but not oversized, ischemic penumbra volume. Moreover, this study proposes a new CTP target mismatch based on specific threshold values of T max alone for identifying critically hypoperfused tissue (T max > 9.5 seconds) and ischemic core (T max > 16 seconds). This study is not without limitations. First, as this study was based on retrospective analysis, our findings require prospective validation. Second, this was a nonrandomized study consisting of a selected population in which eligibility for EVT was decided by local stroke team and data from patients not receiving EVT were lacking. Therefore, we cannot exclude the influence of unmeasured confounders and of selection bias in our analysis. Third, early presenters were more represented than late presenters, making the 2 groups unbalanced. Fourth, these results are conditional on the use of the GE CTP 4D algorithm; corresponding values for T max may need to be derived for other CTP algorithms. 25,26 Fifth, a comparison with RAPID thresholds as part of the DEFUSE 3 selection criteria was not performed, and therefore we are unable to comment whether T max target mismatch is different to DEFUSE 3 parameters based on T max -CBF mismatch for differentiating good and poor radiological and clinical outcomes. Sixth, although consistent with some previous trials and meta-analyses, 2,27 the use of a dichotomized mRS may have reduced statistical power and neglected possible outcome shifts in the mRS range 3 to 6. 28 Seventh, the different devices used in our study period and the evolution of EVT technologies therefore during this period 29 may have influenced the results of this analysis. Finally, the exclusion of patients with low ASPECTS scores did not allow us to verify the rates of patients with unfavorable NCCT and favorable CTP profiles who achieved a good functional outcome that was reported to be about 60% in a recent study. 19 In conclusion, we demonstrate the potential of a simple T max only target mismatch paradigm in predicting radiological and clinical outcomes in patients with AIS undergoing EVT both in the early and late time windows. Further prospective studies are warranted to clarify the actual applicability of T max target mismatch in selecting patients with AIS with LVO who can benefit from EVT. |
#! /usr/bin/env python3
N = int(input())
A = [int(i) for i in input().split()]
def gcd(a, b):
while b > 0:
c = a % b
a = b
b = c
return int(a)
def lcm(a, b):
return a // gcd(a, b) * b
l = 1
for i in range(N):
l = lcm(l, A[i])
ans = 0
MOD = int(1e9 + 7)
for a in A:
ans += int(l // a)
# ans %= MOD
print(ans % MOD) |
The INFATI Data The ability to perform meaningful empirical studies is of essence in research in spatio-temporal query processing. Such studies are often necessary to gain detailed insight into the functional and performance characteristics of proposals for new query processing techniques. We present a collection of spatio-temporal data, collected during an intelligent speed adaptation project, termed INFATI, in which some two dozen cars equipped with GPS receivers and logging equipment took part. We describe how the data was collected and how it was modified to afford the drivers some degree of anonymity. We also present the road network in which the cars were moving during data collection. The GPS data is publicly available for non-commercial purposes. It is our hope that this resource will help the spatiotemporal research community in its efforts to develop new and better query processing techniques. |
from argparse import ArgumentParser, Namespace
from typing import Tuple
def parse_arguments() -> Tuple[ArgumentParser, Namespace]:
parser = ArgumentParser(
description="Store and version large files in S3; open them like regular files. Caching included.",
)
parser.add_argument(
"-s",
"--secrets",
type=str,
help="path to an .ini configration file with your S3 credentials",
required=True,
)
parser.add_argument(
"-c",
"--cache",
nargs="+",
type=str,
help="download file into local cache, example: file_name:version",
required=False,
)
parser.add_argument(
"-p",
"--push",
nargs="+",
type=str,
help="push a local file into S3 and set it as the most recent version",
required=False,
)
parser.add_argument(
"-d",
"--delete",
nargs="+",
type=str,
help="delete every version of file from S3",
required=False,
)
parser.print_usage = parser.print_help # type: ignore
args = parser.parse_args()
return parser, args
|
Can deep learning match the efficiency of human visual long-term memory in storing object details? Humans have a remarkably large capacity to store detailed visual information in long-term memory even after a single exposure, as demonstrated by classic experiments in psychology. For example, Standing showed that humans could recognize with high accuracy thousands of pictures that they had seen only once a few days prior to a recognition test. In deep learning, the primary mode of incorporating new information into a model is through gradient descent in the model's parameter space. This paper asks whether deep learning via gradient descent can match the efficiency of human visual long-term memory to incorporate new information in a rigorous, head-to-head, quantitative comparison. We answer this in the negative: even in the best case, models learning via gradient descent require approximately 10 exposures to the same visual materials in order to reach a recognition memory performance humans achieve after only a single exposure. Prior knowledge induced via pretraining and bigger model sizes improve performance, but these improvements are not very visible after a single exposure (it takes a few exposures for the improvements to become apparent), suggesting that simply scaling up the pretraining data size or model size might not be a feasible strategy to reach human-level memory efficiency. Introduction We, at one glance, can perceive three glasses on a table; Funes, all the leaves and tendrils and fruit that make up a grape vine. He knew by heart the focus of the southern clouds at dawn on the 30th of April, 1882, and could compare them in his memory with the mottled streaks on a book in Spanish binding he had only seen once and with the outlines of the foam raised by an oar in the Rio Negro the night before the Quebracho uprising. These memories were not simple ones; each visual image was linked to muscular sensations, thermal sensations, etc. He could reconstruct all his dreams, all his half-dreams. Two or three times he had reconstructed a whole day; he never hesitated, but each reconstruction had required a whole day. He told me: "I alone have more memories than all mankind has probably had since the world has been the world." And again: "My dreams are like you people's waking hours." And again, toward dawn: "My memory, sir, is like a garbage heap." A circle drawn on a blackboard, a right triangle, a lozenge-all these are forms we can fully and intuitively grasp; Ireneo could do the same with the stormy mane of a pony, with a herd of cattle on a hill, with the changing fire and its innumerable ashes, with the many faces of a dead man throughout a long wake. I don't know how many stars he could see in the sky. -Funes the Memorious, Jorge Luis Borges Borges' famous short story, Funes the Memorious, describes a fictional character, Ireneo Funes, who has an extraordinary capacity to remember things and events. Funes' exceptional feats of memory, as recounted by Borges, inspire a sense of awe and fascination in us partly because they make us viscerally aware of the inferiority of our own capacity to remember in comparison. The memory capacity of an average human being is, of course, nowhere near as impressive as that of Funes, yet experiments repeatedly suggest that it may still be surprisingly large and that we may often be subjectively underestimating our own capacity to remember things. For example, in a classic study, Lionel Standing showed that humans could recognize with high accuracy 10000 pictures they were shown only once a few days prior to a recognition test. In a more recent follow-up study, Brady et al. showed that these long-term visual memories may be remarkably detailed, fine-grained memories. How would our current machine learning models fare in their ability to incorporate and retain new visual information in a head-to-head comparison with humans? Would they already perform at super-human levels, a bit like real-world artificial versions of Ireneo Funes, or would they fall significantly short of the efficiency of human memory to incorporate new visual information? In current deep learning practice, the primary mode of incorporating new information into a model is through gradient descent in the model's parameter space (other less standard ways of incorporating information into a deep learning model are discussed in the Discussion section below). In this paper, we ask if deep learning via gradient descent can match the efficiency of human long-term memory to incorporate new visual information in a rigorous, head-to-head, quantitative comparison. An answer to this question would be highly informative for a few reasons: if current deep learning models turn out to be inferior to humans, we can aim for human-level memory efficiency as a feasible performance target for our models (similar to aiming for human-level Go playing, humanlevel machine translation, or human-level speech recognition); if we find that deep learning models can in principle match human memory efficiency but only with much greater sample size requirements (e.g. only after pretraining them with ultra large datasets), this can motivate us to improve the sample efficiency of our models relative to humans; in the case of either or, a better understanding and appreciation of how humans achieve high memory efficiency with low sample complexity can give us ideas or hints about how to improve our models in these respects. Our results suggest that deep learning via gradient descent, as currently practiced, cannot match human memory efficiency when subjected to the same visual recognition memory experiment as in Brady et al.. We find that even in the best case, deep learning models require roughly 10 exposures to the same visual stimuli in order to reach a recognition memory performance that humans achieve after a single exposure. Prior knowledge induced through pretraining and larger model sizes improve the model performance, however these improvements are usually not apparent after a single exposure, requiring at least a few exposures to begin to show their effects. This suggests that simply scaling up the pretraining dataset size or the model size may not be a feasible strategy to reach human-level memory efficiency, pointing instead to the importance of algorithmic improvements to achieve this goal. We discuss the implications of these findings in the context of earlier studies both in deep learning and in human memory research. All code, models, stimuli, and simulation results related to this work can be found at the following public repository: https: //github.com/eminorhan/igpt-memory. Experimental setup Our main goal in this paper is to replicate the visual recognition memory experiments in Brady et al. in silico by subjecting deep learning models to the same experimental stimuli and conditions. In these experiments, human subjects were first shown 2500 pictures of real world objects (study stimuli; see Figure 1a). Each picture was shown only once for 3 seconds during the study phase. After this study session, which took over 5 hours to complete, a test session followed in which in each trial, a randomly chosen study picture was paired with a new, unseen picture (foil) and subjects were asked to indicate which of the two pictures was seen during the study session. To probe the resolution of subjects' memory for the study stimuli, three different types of foil were used in the test trials: (i) novel, where the foil came from a different category than all the study stimuli presented during the experiment, hence this condition only required a coarse conceptual representation of the study item in memory; (ii) exemplar, where the foil came from the same category as the study item, but was a different exemplar, hence this condition presumably required a more detailed Figure 1: A schematic illustration of the basic design of the visual recognition memory experiment in Brady et al.. (a) During the study phase, participants were sequentially shown 2500 pictures of real world objects. (b) After that, a recognition test followed, where in each trial a study item was paired with an unseen picture (foil) and participants were asked to indicate which of the two pictures was presented during the study phase. Different types of foils were used in different trials in order to probe the granularity of the participants' memory for the study items. representation of the study item in memory in order to distinguish it from the foil; (iii) state, where the foil depicted the same object as the study item but in a different state than was seen during the study phase, this condition thus presumably required the most detailed representation of the study item in memory, since the subject had to remember the particular state in which the study object was observed during the study phase. An example each of the three types of test trials is shown in Figure 1b. Each of these conditions consisted of 100 trials in the experiment, for a total of 300 test trials. Objective The recognition memory experiment described in the previous subsection is most naturally modeled as a probabilistic model learning task, where during the study phase, the model learns a probability density function, p (x), that tries to maximize the likelihood of the study items: where S denotes the set of study items. Equivalently, one can minimize the negative log-likelihood of the study items (which is the approach we will follow in this work): It is crucial to note that because of the relatively small size of the study set (2500 images), given enough passes through the study set (as is commonly done in standard machine learning problems), a sufficiently large capacity model can successfully fit or "memorize" the study items through gradient descent, achieving a near-zero loss on the study set and a perfect accuracy on the test trials. Therefore, the key comparison in this case is between human performance in the experiments of Brady et al. and the model performance after only a single pass through the study set, i.e. after only a single exposure to each study item (just like in the human experiments). In standard machine learning terminology, this corresponds to a single epoch of training over the study set. Note that we do allow batch updates to the model during the study phase, hence we do not restrict ourselves to a strictly online learning setting (we found that batch updates generally work better than online updates). Note also that this setting is different from the common one-shot (or few-shot) learning problem in machine learning, where the "shot" usually refers to the number of examples (or sample size), and not to the number of exposures to the examples. 1 For the test trials, we calculate the likelihoods of both the study item s and the foil f under the learned probabilistic model and the one that returns a higher likelihood is chosen as the model's response for that trial: Models Model class: We implement the probabilistic model, p (x), with Image GPT (iGPT) models trained autoregressively (). To be able to feasibly model the images, we first resize the original images used by Brady et al., which are 256256 pixels, to 6464. As in Chen et al., we further eliminate the color channels (RGB) by running k-means on the pixels of the study set in the three-dimensional color space with a dictionary size of 512. Thus, the final preprocessed images, x, are 6464 pixels in size where each pixel takes on a discrete value among 512 possible values. We refer the reader to Chen et al. for further details about the iGPT model. Model size: For the main experiments, we use iGPT models with 24 layers, 8 attention heads, and an embedding size of 512 (equivalent in size to the iGPT-S model in Chen et al. with ∼77M parameters). To investigate the effect of model size on recognition memory performance, later on we also consider roughly 4 smaller models with 6 layers, 2 attention heads, and an embedding size of 512. We call this smaller model iGPT-mini. Prior knowledge: To investigate the effect of prior knowledge on visual recognition memory performance, we consider both models trained from scratch on the study set (tabula rasa models) and models pretrained on a large natural image dataset. We consider two such datasets for instilling prior knowledge about the visual world into the model: ImageNet-1K, which consists of ∼1.28M natural images of real-world objects from 1000 different categories (), and SAYCam, a dataset of longitudinal headcam videos recorded from the perspective of three babies early in their development, i.e. roughly from 6 to 32 months (). Further details about pretraining as well as samples generated from the pretrained iGPT models can be found in the Appendix. Our main motivation for using SAYCam is that, compared to ImageNet, it is a more representative sample of the visual experiences of humans (especially young humans), hence arguably it provides a better opportunity to conduct a fair comparison between human subjects and deep learning models. That being said, it should still be kept in mind that even the combined data from all three babies in SAYCam, approaching ∼500 hours total of natural video, is about two orders of magnitude smaller in size than what a typical sighted human being would experience by the age of 10. In our experiments with SAYCam, we use data from all three babies. We temporally subsample the SAYCam videos at a rate of 0.5 fps (1 frame every two seconds), resulting in a dataset with ∼0.86M frames in total. Results 3.1 Prior knowledge helps, but even the best models need 10 more exposures than humans in order to reach human-level recognition memory performance Figure 2 shows our main results, where we have plotted the test accuracy of the models in the novel, exemplar, and state conditions as a function of the number of exposures to the study stimuli. Tabula rasa models require dozens of passes through the study set in order to reach human-level accuracy on the recognition memory tests (recall that humans need only a single exposure to the study stimuli to reach this level of accuracy). Prior knowledge induced via pretraining improves the recognition memory performance of the models tremendously, however this improvement is not very visible after only a single exposure, so that even the pretrained models are roughly at chance level after a single exposure and they typically still need ∼10 exposures to the study stimuli in order to reach human-level recognition memory performance. We did not observe a significant difference between the performance of the ImageNet-pretrained vs. SAYCam-pretrained models in recognition memory tests (red vs. blue lines in Figure 2). This result is surprising given the differences in the size and nature of these two datasets and points to a relatively generic, content non-specific benefit of pretraining for recognition memory performance, as will be discussed in more detail below. In the human experiments of Brady et al., participants performed slightly better in the novel condition than in the exemplar and state conditions (horizontal orange lines in Figure 2) Intriguingly, we observed a reversal of this pattern for the models such that they typically performed better in the exemplar and state conditions than in the novel condition (e.g., after 10 exposures to the study stimuli, the SAYCam-pretrained model achieved a test accuracy of 82.5 ± 1.75% (s.e.m.) in the novel condition, 96 ± 0.5% in the exemplar condition, and 96.5 ± 0.75% in the state condition). It remains unclear at the moment what causes this discrepancy between the human and the model results. 3.2 Effects of model size, pretraining data size, and stimulus type on recognition memory performance Recent work in deep learning has revealed scale (both model size and training data size) to be a critical determinant of model capabilities, with increases in scale sometimes leading to surprising qualitative jumps in model capabilities ;;;;). Motivated by these recent findings, we conducted experiments to investigate the effects of model size, pretraining data size, and stimulus type on the memory efficiency of our iGPT models in the visual recognition memory experiment of Brady et al.. Effect of model size: Figure 3a shows the effect of model size on recognition memory accuracy for the ImageNet-pretrained models (in Figure 3, we show the recognition accuracy averaged over the three test conditions). In this experiment, we first pretrained both an iGPT-S model and a 4 smaller iGPT-mini model on ImageNet up to the same loss value (∼1.5 nats/pixel) and then performed the recognition memory experiment of Brady et al. with both models. Model size had a clear effect on recognition memory accuracy: even after controlling for the pretraining loss, hence controlling for the amount of prior knowledge in the models, the larger model (iGPT-S) performed significantly better than the 4 smaller model (iGPT-mini). However, this effect was again not very visible after a single exposure. The difference between the models rather became apparent only in later exposures. After a single exposure to the study items, the iGPT-S model had a recognition accuracy of 53.2 ± 2.4% and the iGPT-mini model had a recognition accuracy of 51.4 ± 2.5%. Thus, a quick backof-the-envelope calculation suggests that assuming every quadrupling of the model size improves single-exposure recognition accuracy by ∼2%, it would take roughly 18 quadruplings of the model size, or roughly 11 orders of magnitude increase in model size, to reach human-level recognition accuracy, starting from an iGPT-S model. Since the iGPT-S model already has O(10 8 ) parameters, this means that a model with O(10 19 ) parameters would be needed to reach human-level recognition accuracy. 2 This corresponds to a model with roughly four orders of magnitude more parameters than the number of synapses in the human brain (although see the Caveats section below for some caveats about this quick back-of-the-envelope estimate). Effect of pretraining data size. Figure 3b shows the effect of pretraining data size on recognition memory accuracy. In this experiment, we first pretrained iGPT-S models on 100%, 10%, and 1% of the SAYCam dataset and then performed the recognition memory experiments of Brady et al. on these models. The pretraining data size had very little to no effect on the recognition memory performance. Together with the insensitivity of recognition memory performance to pretraining data type (ImageNet vs. SAYCam), this again points to a relatively generic benefit for pretraining in these experiments. Effect of stimulus type. Finally, we also investigated the effect of stimulus type to be remembered on recognition memory performance. We compared the recognition memory performance with object images used in Brady et al. to recognition memory performance with simple random iid noise stimuli (see the Appendix for stimulus details). The results are shown in Figure 3c. For tabula rasa models (black lines), recognition memory performance with noise stimuli (dashed lines) was actually better than the performance with object images. This is presumably because the noise stimuli are intrinsically more distinct from each other, whereas the object images are intrinsically more similar. However, the pattern was reversed for models pretrained on natural images. Both for the ImageNet-pretrained model and for the SAYCam-pretrained model, recognition performance was better with object images than with noise stimuli. This makes sense, as pretraining with natural images presumably biases the model to spend more of its capacity toward natural images, hence SAYCam-pretrained Figure 4: Results from the simulated Konkle et al. experiment probing the effect of conceptual distinctiveness on recognition memory accuracy. Results are shown for both tabula rasa, ImageNet-pretrained, and SAYCam-pretrained models. In each subplot, different lines represent different test conditions corresponding to different conceptual distinctiveness levels (more exemplars from a category make those exemplars conceptually less distinctive). There is no clear and consistent effect of conceptual distinctiveness on recognition memory accuracy for either of the three models. improves the encoding of those kinds of images at the expense of other types of possible images (such as random noise). No evidence for a conceptual distinctiveness advantage for recognition memory in the models In a follow-up study to Brady et al., Konkle et al. set out to investigate some of the factors behind the large capacity of human visual recognition memory. They focused, in particular, on the role of conceptual distinctiveness of the study items (i.e. whether the items belong to the same or different categories) in affecting the human recognition memory performance. To this end, they conducted a study similar to that of Brady et al., but this time they carefully controlled the number of distinct exemplars from different object categories during the study phase. Some categories had 16 distinct exemplars presented during the study phase, some had 8, some 4, some 2, and some had only 1 exemplar. In the test trials, they observed that conceptual distinctiveness had a significant effect on the recognition accuracy of the subjects: when the study item and the foil belonged to different categories (novel condition), recognition accuracy was at 93%; accuracy decreased as the study item and the foil both belonged to increasingly more "cluttered" categories: e.g. when they both belonged to a 16-exemplar category (16 exemplar condition), recognition accuracy dropped to 83%. Konkle et al. argued that this result was specifically due to the conceptual or categorical distinctiveness of the items and could not be attributed to perceptual distinctiveness (perceptual distinctiveness was a confounding factor in their experiment). We replicated the experiment of Konkle et al. with our iGPT models (see the Appendix for further experimental details) and the results are shown in Figure 4. Unlike in the human experiment, we did not find a clear and consistent effect of conceptual distinctiveness on recognition memory accuracy. This result suggests that our iGPT models, including the models pretrained on natural images, likely encode these object images quite differently from the human subjects, in a way that is less reliant on "conceptual hooks". Caveats Here, we would like to mention two important limitations/caveats that should be borne in mind in interpreting the results presented in this work. Future work should address these limitations: We have only considered a particular model class, namely Image GPT, for modeling the image likelihoods p (x) in this work. Future work should consider other types of likelihoodbased generative models, such as vector-quantized variational autoencoders (Van Den ;), vector-quantized generative adversarial networks (), or flow-based generative models (Kingma and Dhariwal, 2018), to make sure the results in this work are not overly sensitive to the choice of model class. The same caveat applies to hyperparameter choices/configurations not explored in this paper. Although we have shown that model size and pretraining data size do not have a significant effect on the recognition memory accuracy of the models after only a single exposure to the study items (Figure 3), it is conceivable that for even larger model sizes or larger pretraining data sizes than those tested here the models could display a qualitative jump in single-exposure performance, significantly outperforming all the models presented here and possibly even approaching human recognition memory performance. Future work should consider this possibility by testing even larger model sizes and larger pretraining data sizes than those that were feasible for us to implement in this work. Discussion Recent work in deep learning found that large language models like GPT-2 can "unintentionally" memorize large amounts of verbatim text from their training data ((Carlini et al.,, 2021, which would imply a large recognition memory capacity for such models (but with unknown efficiency), however a direct quantitative comparison with humans in a domain where human recognition memory is particularly strong, i.e. in the visual domain, has not been performed before. To our knowledge, this paper presents the first attempt to carry out such a rigorous, quantitative comparison. It would be informative to perform similar comparisons in other (non-visual) domains. It is known, for instance, that auditory recognition memory is substantially inferior to visual recognition memory in humans (). It would be interesting to know if this result holds for gradient descent trained deep learning models too. Similarly, some classic studies exist in the human memory literature on recognition memory for linguistic materials, i.e. words and sentences. It would be interesting to compare these results with recognition memory for similar linguistic stimuli in large language models. Our results suggest that current gradient-based deep learning algorithms may be inadequate for achieving human-level efficiency in incorporating new visual information into long-term memory. In practical terms, we can imagine broadly two types of responses to these findings, one more dismissive and the other more constructive. The dismissive response might go as follows: Humans and deep learning models operate under very different constraints, hence humanlevel speed or efficiency to incorporate new information into memory may not be critically important for deep learning models. For example, in standard machine learning problems, data is often stored externally to the model, so one can always do another "pass" over the data and with a sufficiently large capacity model, one would be guaranteed to learn it perfectly with enough passes over it. Although this response contains some kernel of truth, it is ultimately not satisfactory. First, not all problems in machine learning involve externally stored data: e.g. real-time, streaming data sources create conditions and constraints a lot closer to those under which the human brain evolved to operate. Secondly, even in more standard machine learning problem settings, it would be of great practical interest to improve the efficiency of our models to incorporate new information (inspired by the superior human efficiency to do the same). Most obviously, this would, for example, significantly reduce the training time of our models. The constructive response would consider our results as a challenge to algorithmically improve the memory efficiency of deep learning models. Several ideas have already been proposed in the literature to achieve similar goals: Adding fast-learning Hebbian terms to parameter updates as in fast weights (Hinton and Plaut, 1987), activity caching (), or weight imprinting (). However, these ideas either lack the generality of gradient descent or have not been shown to scale up to very large problems. It is important to demonstrate that such ideas do not limit the power of gradient-based learning in large scale problems. Using large explicit memory stores to cache compressed representations of the observed data or a subset thereof (;;Orhan, 2018;;;). This proposal has its drawbacks: for example, it creates very large memory storage and demanding retrieval requirements at inference time. Nevertheless, it would be an effective way to solve the fast learning problem considered in this paper (perhaps even trivial depending on the particular implementation adopted). Something like this may also be part of the solution animal brains found at evolutionary timescale to deal with the fast learning problem, an idea known as the complementary learning systems hypothesis in psychology and neuroscience (;). In this work, we have not addressed the important question of the long-term retention of new information (or its durability in memory), but only its induction or incorporation into a model (or into long-term memory). There are some classic results in the human memory literature on the long-term retention of memories in humans (;Bahrick, 1984). A rigorous, quantitative comparison of the retention capabilities of humans vs. deep learning models trained via gradient descent would be highly informative as well. In this work, we have only considered recognition memory, but recognition is only a single facet of memory in humans and machine learning models. Future work should consider other (more demanding) aspects of memory such as recall and the use of retrieved information in downstream tasks. Finally, even when it comes to recognition memory, we have only compared single-exposure recognition memory in humans vs. gradient-based deep learning models in this work. It is important to note that the results may be different for multiple exposures. In humans, experimental evidence suggests that visual recognition memory improves over multiple exposures to the same objects (), just like in deep learning models. However, whether humans would still outperform deep learning models for a given number of exposures in a specific problem setting remains an open question. With the capacity of the iGPT-S model, it was possible to achieve near-zero training loss values for training datasets with thousands of images, given enough passes over the dataset. Figure 6 below shows example training loss curves on the study set of Brady et al. (with 2500 training images) for the tabula rasa, ImageNet-pretrained, and SAYCam-pretrained iGPT-S models. Experimental details For the simulated Brady et al. and Konkle et al. experiments, we generated two different versions of the study and test sets and ran experiments with each version using two different random seeds, yielding a total of four different runs of each experiment. In the simulated Konkle et al. experiments, there were 40 categories each in the 16-exemplar, 8-exemplar, 4-exemplar, 2-exemplar, and 1-exemplar categories in the study set, for a total of 40*(16+8+4+2+1)=1240 study stimuli. The test session consisted of 40 trials each of the novel, 16-exemplar, 8-exemplar, 4exemplar, 2-exemplar, and 1-exemplar conditions for a total of 240 test trials. For the random noise experiments reported in Figure 3c in the main text, we generated random 6464 images, where the value of each pixel was uniformly and independently sampled from one of 512 discrete values (identical in size to the reduced natural images used elsewhere in this work). We generated 2500 such random images for the study set and generated a separate set of 300 novel random images that were used in the recognition test trials (for a total of 300 test trials). We repeated each random noise experiment four times with different random seeds. nll) Tabula rasa ImageNet-pretrained SAYCam-pretrained Figure 6: Training losses on the study set of Brady et al. (with 2500 training images) for the tabula rasa, ImageNet-pretrained, and SAYCam-pretrained iGPT-S models. For all three models, it is possible to achieve near-zero training loss given enough passes over the training images. Error bars represent standard errors over four different runs of the experiment. nll: negative log-likelihood. |
class Bread{
// Properties
LOCATION_NUM: number;
ITEM_NUM: number;
CALENDAR_DATE: Date;
ITEM_DESC: number;
DIF_TRND: number;
DIF_PRICE: number;
DIF_HOL: number;
DIF_WK_DAY: number;
DIF_INT: number;
DIF_HRM: number;
DIF_DEMO: number;
DIF_COUPON: number;
UNIT_SALES: number;
UNIT_SALES_FC: number;
REVENUE: number;
REVENUE_FC: number;
UNIT_PRICE: number;
REVENUE_FC_ADJ: number;
UNIT_SALES_FC_ADJ: number;
DIF_COUPON_ALL: number;
}
|
Research on value-added service strategy of the third-party platform based on system dynamics As a service-oriented manufacturing platform, the third-party platform has become an important channel to support multi-value chain collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to explore the value-added service (VAS) strategy of the third-party platform for manufacturing. A multi-value chain system consisted of manufacturers, suppliers, and a third-party platform are considered in this paper. Based on determining the main variables causal relationships and building the corresponding quantitative formulations, this paper proposes a system dynamics model to simulate and analyze the third-party platforms VAS strategy. The simulation results show that the platform should adopt a low VAS level in the early stage of development. In the middle stage of development, the platform should first increase the VAS level to attract manufacturers to access, and then reduce the VAS level to attract more suppliers to access. After entering the later stage of development, the platform should improve the VAS level. We also find the platform should adopt a low VAS level when the difference between two types of suppliers parts quality is small but high level of VAS when the quality of two types of suppliers parts differs obviously. |
/**
*
* @param result = LookupResult object
* @param term = arbitrary term for the output risk message - accepts null
* value
* @return full report String
*/
public String buildThreatReport(LookupResult result, String term) {
if (term == null || term.equals("")) {
term = this.threat_terms.get(new Random().nextInt(this.threat_terms.size()));
}
int i = 0;
String sb = new StringBuilder("\t\t\t\t\t\u001B[34;1mThe lookup returned the following:\u001B[0m\n"
+ "Request URL: " + result.getUrl() + "\n"
+ "Code: " + result.getHttpCode() + "\n").toString();
String[] data = result.getData().split("\n");
for (String d : data) {
if (!(d.isEmpty() || d.contains("ok"))) {
sb += "URL: \u001B[1m" + result.getUrls()[i] + "\u001B[0m --> ";
sb += ("\033[31;1m" + term + " " + d + "\u001B[0m");
String[] tmp = d.split(",");
Set<Map.Entry<String, String>> set = this.warning_language.entrySet();
for (String tmp1 : tmp) {
for (Map.Entry<String, String> s : set) {
if (s.getKey().equals(tmp1)) {
sb += "\n" + s.getKey() + ": " + s.getValue() + "\n";
}
}
}
} else if (result.getHttpCode() == 200 || result.getHttpCode() == 204) {
sb += "URL: \u001B[1m" + result.getUrls()[i] + "\u001B[0m --> ";
sb += "\033[32;1m" + term + " safe\u001B[0m\n";
} else {
sb += "\033[31;1m" + searchResponseCode(result.getHttpCode()) + "\u001B[0m";
}
i++;
}
/*
*Google Advisory info will be included in the output
*to comply with google policy for displaying warnings
*@ https://developers.google.com/safe-browsing/lookup_guide#UserWarnings
*/
sb += "\n" + this.getGoogleSpecs();
return sb;
} |
package br.com.podrao.auth.core.exceptions;
import lombok.Getter;
import lombok.RequiredArgsConstructor;
@Getter
@RequiredArgsConstructor
public class GenericBadRequestException extends RuntimeException {
private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
private final String mensagem;
}
|
Utilisation of acute hospitals by age and sex in Australia, 1985. This paper provides estimates of the utilisation rates of acute care (short-stay) hospitals, by age and sex, for the Australian population. Separation and bed-day rates per 1000 persons for public, Repatriation and private hospitals in 1985 have been estimated by age group, for each sex, in each State and Territory in Australia. The Australian Base Grant, negotiated between the Commonwealth, States and Territories in the new Medicare Agreements, distributes funds for the care and treatment of Medicare patients in public hospitals. The national bed-day utilisation rates reported in this article, have been used as the basis for population weights to allocate these funds. This paper presents the data and methods used to derive these weights, and examines the differences between them and the actual State and Territory utilisation patterns in 1985. The impact of population ageing on the overall utilisation rates for acute hospitals in Australia is examined. |
X International Symposium on Lightning Protection 9 th-13 th November, 2009 Curitiba, Brazil ELECTRIC FIELDS OF GROUNDING ELECTRODES : FREQUENCY AND TIME DOMAIN ANALYSIS This paper investigates the influence of frequencydependent electrical soil parameters on underground electric fields associated to the dispersion of lightning currents through grounding electrodes. Results show that the frequency dependence of the soil parameters leads to strong attenuation and distortion of the calculated transient electric fields. It is also shown that both features become more pronounce for less conductive soils and impulsive currents with short front times. |
<reponame>lalobot/react-sketchapp
import * as PropTypes from 'prop-types';
export const BorderStyle = PropTypes.oneOf<'solid' | 'dotted' | 'dashed'>([
'solid',
'dotted',
'dashed',
]);
export const Color = PropTypes.oneOfType([PropTypes.string, PropTypes.number]);
export const Overflow = PropTypes.oneOf<'visible' | 'hidden' | 'scroll'>([
'visible',
'hidden',
'scroll',
]);
export const ViewStylePropTypes = {
display: PropTypes.oneOf(['flex', 'none']),
color: Color,
shadowColor: Color,
shadowInner: PropTypes.bool,
shadowSpread: PropTypes.number,
shadowOffset: PropTypes.shape({
width: PropTypes.number,
height: PropTypes.number,
}),
shadowOpacity: PropTypes.number,
shadowRadius: PropTypes.number,
width: PropTypes.number,
height: PropTypes.number,
top: PropTypes.number,
left: PropTypes.number,
right: PropTypes.number,
bottom: PropTypes.number,
minWidth: PropTypes.number,
maxWidth: PropTypes.number,
minHeight: PropTypes.number,
maxHeight: PropTypes.number,
margin: PropTypes.number,
marginVertical: PropTypes.number,
marginHorizontal: PropTypes.number,
marginTop: PropTypes.number,
marginBottom: PropTypes.number,
marginLeft: PropTypes.number,
marginRight: PropTypes.number,
padding: PropTypes.number,
paddingVertical: PropTypes.number,
paddingHorizontal: PropTypes.number,
paddingTop: PropTypes.number,
paddingBottom: PropTypes.number,
paddingLeft: PropTypes.number,
paddingRight: PropTypes.number,
position: PropTypes.oneOf<'absolute' | 'relative'>(['absolute', 'relative']),
flexDirection: PropTypes.oneOf<'row' | 'row-reverse' | 'column' | 'column-reverse'>([
'row',
'row-reverse',
'column',
'column-reverse',
]),
flexWrap: PropTypes.oneOf<'wrap' | 'nowrap' | 'wrap-reverse'>(['wrap', 'nowrap', 'wrap-reverse']),
justifyContent: PropTypes.oneOf<
'flex-start' | 'flex-end' | 'center' | 'space-between' | 'space-around'
>(['flex-start', 'flex-end', 'center', 'space-between', 'space-around']),
alignContent: PropTypes.oneOf<
| 'flex-start'
| 'flex-end'
| 'center'
| 'space-between'
| 'space-around'
| 'stretch'
| 'baseline'
| 'auto'
>([
'flex-start',
'flex-end',
'center',
'space-between',
'space-around',
'stretch',
'baseline',
'auto',
]),
alignItems: PropTypes.oneOf<'flex-start' | 'flex-end' | 'center' | 'stretch' | 'baseline'>([
'flex-start',
'flex-end',
'center',
'stretch',
'baseline',
]),
alignSelf: PropTypes.oneOf<
'auto' | 'flex-start' | 'flex-end' | 'center' | 'stretch' | 'baseline'
>(['auto', 'flex-start', 'flex-end', 'center', 'stretch', 'baseline']),
overflow: Overflow,
overflowX: Overflow,
overflowY: Overflow,
flex: PropTypes.number,
flexGrow: PropTypes.number,
flexShrink: PropTypes.number,
flexBasis: PropTypes.number,
aspectRatio: PropTypes.number,
zIndex: PropTypes.number,
backfaceVisibility: PropTypes.oneOf<'visible' | 'hidden'>(['visible', 'hidden']),
backgroundColor: Color,
borderColor: Color,
borderTopColor: Color,
borderRightColor: Color,
borderBottomColor: Color,
borderLeftColor: Color,
borderRadius: PropTypes.number,
borderTopLeftRadius: PropTypes.number,
borderTopRightRadius: PropTypes.number,
borderBottomLeftRadius: PropTypes.number,
borderBottomRightRadius: PropTypes.number,
borderStyle: BorderStyle,
borderTopStyle: BorderStyle,
borderRightStyle: BorderStyle,
borderBottomStyle: BorderStyle,
borderLeftStyle: BorderStyle,
borderWidth: PropTypes.number,
borderTopWidth: PropTypes.number,
borderRightWidth: PropTypes.number,
borderBottomWidth: PropTypes.number,
borderLeftWidth: PropTypes.number,
opacity: PropTypes.number,
transform: PropTypes.string,
transformOrigin: PropTypes.string,
};
|
import time
import pygame
import constants as cst
from vehicles import Vehicles
from roads import Roads
class MyApp:
def __init__(self):
pygame.init()
pygame.mixer.init(frequency=22050, size=-16, channels=2, buffer=4096)
icon_surface = pygame.image.load('assets/icon.ico')
self.font = pygame.font.Font('assets/LEMONMILK-Regular.otf', 20)
pygame.display.set_icon(icon_surface)
pygame.display.set_caption("Car Project")
self.window = pygame.display.set_mode((cst.SCREEN_WIDTH, cst.SCREEN_HEIGHT))
self.clock = pygame.time.Clock()
self.allVehicles = Vehicles(self.window)
self.allVehicles.addPlayer()
self.road = Roads(self.window, cst.SCREEN_WIDTH, cst.SCREEN_HEIGHT)
self.game_state = "menu"
self.soundEnabled = False
self.init_game()
self.display()
def init_game(self):
self.allVehicles.clearVehiculesOnTheRoad()
self.init_timer = time.time()
self.score = self.init_timer
def keydown(self, key, lockKey):
if self.game_state == "in_game":
if key == pygame.K_LEFT: # If the key down is the left arrow
if not lockKey: # To avoid key retention
self.allVehicles.player.changeDestination('Left')
lockKey = True
elif key == pygame.K_RIGHT: # If the key down is the right arrow
if not lockKey: # To avoid key retention
self.allVehicles.player.changeDestination('Right')
lockKey = True
elif self.game_state == "menu" or self.game_state == "game_over":
if key == pygame.K_RETURN:
self.init_game()
self.game_state = "in_game"
return lockKey
def display(self):
if self.game_state == "menu":
self.display_menu()
elif self.game_state == "in_game":
self.display_game()
elif app.game_state == "game_over":
if self.allVehicles.player.remainingLives > 0:
self.display_end_level()
else:
self.display_game_over()
# Applies new changes on the display.
pygame.display.flip()
def display_menu(self):
self.window.fill(cst.COLOR_GREEN)
cargame_txt = self.font.render("CAR GAME", True, cst.COLOR_BLACK)
pressenter_txt = self.font.render("Press Enter to start.", True, cst.COLOR_BLACK)
tuto_txt = self.font.render("Use Left and Right.", True, cst.COLOR_BLACK)
self.window.blit(cargame_txt, (cst.SCREEN_WIDTH / 2 - cargame_txt.get_size()[0] / 2, 100))
self.window.blit(tuto_txt, (cst.SCREEN_WIDTH / 2 - tuto_txt.get_size()[0] / 2, 200))
self.window.blit(pressenter_txt, (cst.SCREEN_WIDTH / 2 - pressenter_txt.get_size()[0] / 2, 300))
def display_game(self):
# Color entire window with a certain color.
self.window.fill(cst.COLOR_GREEN)
# time.time() - init_timer
self.road.display(4)
self.window.blit(self.allVehicles.player.image,
(self.allVehicles.player.x,
self.allVehicles.player.y))
self.allVehicles.update()
pygame.draw.rect(self.window, cst.COLOR_BROWN, pygame.Rect(0, 0, cst.SCREEN_WIDTH, 100))
pygame.draw.rect(self.window, cst.COLOR_BLACK, pygame.Rect(0, 0, cst.SCREEN_WIDTH, 100), 2)
score_txt = self.font.render("Score :", True, cst.COLOR_BLACK)
self.window.blit(score_txt, (100, 50 - score_txt.get_size()[1] / 2))
self.score = int(((time.time() - self.init_timer) * 30) / 100)
# print(score)
value_txt = self.font.render(str(self.score) + " Km", True, cst.COLOR_BLACK)
self.window.blit(value_txt, (200, 50 - value_txt.get_size()[1] / 2))
def display_game_over(self):
self.window.fill(cst.COLOR_GREEN)
gameover_txt = self.font.render("GAME OVER", True, cst.COLOR_BLACK)
pressenter_txt = self.font.render("Press Enter to restart.", True, cst.COLOR_BLACK)
score_txt = self.font.render(f"Your score: {str(self.score)}", True, cst.COLOR_BLACK)
self.window.blit(gameover_txt, (cst.SCREEN_WIDTH / 2 - gameover_txt.get_size()[0] / 2, 100))
self.window.blit(pressenter_txt, (cst.SCREEN_WIDTH / 2 - pressenter_txt.get_size()[0] / 2, 200))
self.window.blit(score_txt, (cst.SCREEN_WIDTH / 2 - score_txt.get_size()[0] / 2, 300))
def display_end_level(self):
self.window.fill(cst.COLOR_BLUE)
gameover_txt = self.font.render("CRASH", True, cst.COLOR_BLACK)
pressenter_txt = self.font.render("Press Enter to continue.", True, cst.COLOR_BLACK)
remainingLives_txt = self.font.render(f"Vies restantes : {str(self.allVehicles.player.remainingLives)}", True, cst.COLOR_BLACK)
self.window.blit(gameover_txt, (cst.SCREEN_WIDTH / 2 - gameover_txt.get_size()[0] / 2, 100))
self.window.blit(pressenter_txt, (cst.SCREEN_WIDTH / 2 - pressenter_txt.get_size()[0] / 2, 200))
self.window.blit(remainingLives_txt, (cst.SCREEN_WIDTH / 2 - remainingLives_txt.get_size()[0] / 2, 300))
app = MyApp()
launched = True
lockKey = False
countLock = cst.COUNT_LOCK
while launched:
# Collect and use events for user.
if lockKey:
countLock -= 1
if countLock <= 0:
lockKey = False
countLock = cst.COUNT_LOCK
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
launched = False
elif event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN: # If a key is down
lockKey = app.keydown(event.key, lockKey)
if app.game_state == "in_game":
app.allVehicles.addBot()
if app.allVehicles.checkPlayerCollisions():
app.score = int((time.time() - app.init_timer) * 30)
app.game_state = "game_over"
if app.soundEnabled:
pygame.mixer.music.load("assets/game-over.wav")
pygame.mixer.music.play(1) # Play one time
app.allVehicles.checkBotsCollisions()
if app.game_state != "game_over" and pygame.mixer.music.get_busy() == False:
if app.soundEnabled:
pygame.mixer.music.load("assets/background_music.wav")
pygame.mixer.music.play(-1) # Play in loop
app.display()
# For fps.
app.clock.tick(cst.FPS)
# Force exit program
pygame.display.quit()
|
#include<iostream>
#include<cstdio>
#include<cstring>
#include<iomanip>
#include<cmath>
using namespace std;
long long N,Multi=1,Ans=0;
inline long long GetInt()
{
long long num=0;
int bj=1;
char c=getchar();
while(c<'0'||c>'9')bj=(bj==-1||c=='-')?-1:1,c=getchar();
while(c>='0'&&c<='9')num=num*10+c-'0',c=getchar();
return num*bj;
}
inline void ExtraGcd(long long a,long long b,long long &d,long long &x,long long &y)
{
if(b==0)x=1,y=0,d=a;
else
{
ExtraGcd(b,a%b,d,x,y);
long long t=x;x=y;y=t-a/b*y;
}
return;
}
int main(){
long long a[11],b[11],m[11],x,y,d;
N=GetInt();
for(int i=1;i<=N;i++)
{
a[i]=GetInt();
b[i]=GetInt();
Multi*=a[i];
}
for(int i=1;i<=N;i++)
{
m[i]=Multi/a[i];
ExtraGcd(m[i],a[i],d,x,y);
Ans=((Ans+m[i]*x*b[i])%Multi+Multi)%Multi;
}
printf("%lld",Ans);
return 0;
}
|
Some profiles of transmucosal potential difference in rat stomach determined in situ with special reference to effects of timoprazole, a H+,K+-ATPase inhibitor. Gastric transmucosal potential difference (PD) is referred to an index of function and integrity of the mucosa. The features of gastric PD were studied in association with gastric acid secretion. The gastric PD was measured at the forestomach, glandular portion and pylorus in the rat in in situ preparations. Secretagogues such as bethanechol (BeCh, 50 micrograms/kg, i.v.), tetragastrin (TG, 30 micrograms/kg, i.v.), and histamine (Hist, 10 mg/kg, s.c.) produced a decrease in PD at the three regions of the stomach. These PD reductions did not occur with the combined treatment with timoprazole (30 mg/kg, i.d.); a marked increase in PD was noted, especially, in the case of Hist plus timoprazole. Similarly, BeCh induced PD decrease was antagonized by atropine (30 micrograms/kg, i.v.) and Hist induced PD decrease was attenuated by cimetidine (10 mg/kg, i.v.), while TG induced PD decrease was not affected by either of them. Of the antisecretory drugs, only cimetidine produced an increase in basal PD, probably via a mechanism unrelated to acid secretion. These results suggest that the PD decrease by each secretagogue seen at oxyntic and non-oxyntic gland regions of the stomach primarily originates from secretory activation of the parietal cells and that its action on function unrelated to acid secretion also exerts a minor influence on gastric PD. |
Mathematical Responses to the Hole Argument: Then and Now We argue that several apparently distinct responses to the hole argument, all invoking formal or mathematical considerations, should be viewed as a unified"mathematical response". We then consider and rebut two prominent critiques of the mathematical response before reflecting on what is ultimately at issue in this literature. Introduction In a recent paper, Weatherall contends that careful attention to mathematical practice reveals that the "hole argument", familiar from the foundations of general relativity (GR), is fallacious. 1 At issue is whether the hole argument, by implicitly invoking a privileged identification of spacetime points in distinct models of GR, thereby makes use of mathematical structure (something like "point identity") that those models should not be understood to possess. This argument has been controversial. Some, such as Fletcher have contended that yes, the hole argument is blocked by these considerations; 2 whereas others, such as Arledge and Rynasiewicz, Roberts, and Pooley and Read deny it. Weatherall's response to the hole argument is sometimes characterized as "mathematical" (as opposed to "metaphysical"). But it is not the only "mathematical" response in the literature. Shortly after the hole argument was introduced to the philosophy of physics literature by Earman and Norton, Mundy offered an apparently different mathematical response, according to which considerations from formal semantics should be seen to block the hole argument. And more recently, largely in parallel to the literature responding to Weatherall, Shulman has observed that the hole argument cannot be expressed in Homotopy Type Theory with Univalent Foundations (HoTT/UF), a recent program in the foundations of mathematics (The Univalent Foundations Program ). 3 All of these arguments agree on at least one claim: prior to any questions about metaphysics, the hole argument should be rejected as mathematically illegitimate. 4 The goal of the present paper is to explore the relationship between Mundy's response to the hole argument and the more recent responses by Weatherall and Shulman. We argue that all three arguments are substantially the same, and that considering them together helps isolate the core consideration behind all of them: the hole argument requires one to express facts about models of GR that cannot be expressed in "the language of GR", on any reasonable understanding of what that could mean. 5 Instead, one must move outside of GR, by augmenting the theory in some way, or by invoking the resources of a background metatheory, such as set theory. This point can be made by regimenting the "language of GR" via a higher-order axiomatization, as Mundy does; or it may be made by appeal to HoTT/UF, as Shulman does; or it may be made by appeal to mathematical practice, as Weatherall does. Perhaps most importantly, in all three cases, the project is not to solve an interpretational problem by adopting some novel formal apparatus; rather, it is to argue that the (formal) problem allegedly raised by the hole argument is illusory. The remainder of the paper will proceed as follows. In the next section, we will briefly review the hole argument and comment on "metaphysical" responses. Then, we will intro-duce the three "mathematical" responses under consideration. We will focus on Mundy's response and use it to interpret Weatherall's and Shulman's. We will then consider two criticisms of the mathematical response, from Rynasiewicz and Roberts. We conclude by discussing what the mathematical response really amounts to, and relating it to other issues connected to reference and representation. The Hole Argument The hole argument, at least in its modern form, invokes the following mathematical considerations. 6 Given a model of GR, which for these purposes is a pseudo-Riemannian manifold, (M, g ab ), one can construct another model (M, g ab ), isometric to the first, by fixing any diffeomorphism : M → M and defining g ab to be the pushforward of g ab along, * (g ab ). 7 If the diffeomorphism is not the identity on M, then these models disagree at certain points on the value of the metric; and yet, they are isometric by construction, and therefore they are equivalent as pseudo-Riemannian manifolds. These facts are widely taken to present a dilemma. It appears that (M, g ab ) and (M, g ab ) are distinct models that, by virtue of being isometric, agree on all "observable" structure. Thus, if one takes distinct models of GR to correspond to distinct physical situations, the theory distinguishes situations that have no observable differences. Worse, since may be the identity outside of some precompact set, it seems to follow that the metric outside of that set cannot "determine" the metric within it. And so, the argument goes, a manifold substantivalist -that is, a certain kind of "realist" about GR who accepts that distinct models of the theory, in the sense just described, reflect distinct possibilities -incurs significant costs. 6 The "modern" hole argument is most often associated with Earman and Norton ; but it has a prehistory both in Einstein's early work on GR and in more philosophical work by Stein and Earman on Leibniz (see Weatherall, 2020). 7 For background on GR and the conventions adopted here, see Malament. Most authors responding to the hole argument take the basic issue to be metaphysical. 8 They agree that GR presents us with distinct models of the sort contemplated here, and that these naturally represent distinct situations; to avoid the dismal conclusions, a would-be realist (or substantivalist) must adopt a metaphysical view on space and time that denies that these putatively distinct possibilities are genuinely different. Of particular concern has been whether or not one's metaphysics is compatible with the doctrine of Leibniz Equivalence, according to which any pair of isometric pseudo-Riemannian manifolds represent the same possible world. Manifold substantivalists reject Leibniz equivalence; many authors have developed flavors of sophisticated substantivalism, or qualified realism, according to which one can accept Leibniz Equivalence while still endorsing some form of substantivalism. The Mathematical Response As we noted in the Introduction, there is another tradition of responses to the hole argument that seeks to avoid the metaphysical considerations just discussed. Instead, they argue, one should reject the background mathematical claims that others take to generate the hole argument. Roughly: one should deny that there is any relevant sense in which the construction used in the hole argument generates "distinct" pseudo-Riemannian manifolds. Thus, even a realist who takes distinct models to correspond to distinct possibilities can block the hole argument. Mundy defends this position by showing that pseudo-Riemannian geometry admits an "intrinsic axiomatization" in higher-order logic. Formal semantics then provides a precise characterization of a model of pseudo-Riemannian geometry as representable by a set-theoretic structure, of a particular signature, satisfying the axioms of the theory under some interpretation; it also determines a notion of isomorphism between such structures. The notion of isomorphism one arrives at from his intrinsic axiomatization -and, indeed, by any reasonable axiomatization -coincides with isometry on other presentations of the theory. 9 Mundy argues that formal theories of this kind only determine their models up to isomorphism, in the precise sense that any statement in the language of the theory that is true in a structure S is true in any structure S isomorphic to S. In other words, no sentence in the theory can distinguish S and S. Thus isomorphic models are "semantically equivalent" (p. 517), which is equivalence "in the strongest possible sense" (p. 519). But the models at issue in the hole argument, by virtue of being isometric, are isomorphic in this sense. He concludes that these models do not present putatively distinct possibilities, as required in the hole argument, because they are not distinct models. What led others to think that Leibniz equivalence was a substantive doctrine? Mundy offers the following diagnosis. The semantic equivalence of set-theoretic structures representing models of pseudo-Riemannian geometry means that there are no differences between the structures that can be expressed within the "language of GR". 10 But one can also step outside of the theory and, by invoking the further expressive resources of the "semantic metalanguage" -basically, ZFC set theory -one can express differences between set-theoretic representations of models of the theory. Mundy claims that it is by conflating statements in these two languages that one is led into the hole argument, for it is only in the semantic metalanguage that one can express the claim that the "same" point has "different" metric values in two isomorphic models. But assertions in the semantic metalanguage do not have physical significance. They are not assertions within GR. On its face, Mundy's position is different from those defended in the more recent litera-9 Mundy also offers a ground-clearing argument that coordinate-based formulations of pseudo-Riemannian geometry are semantically ambiguous. We focus here on the second, positive part of his argument. 10 Or at least, the language of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds. GR would presumably extend this language, but not in ways that affect the argument. ture. Most notably, Mundy's argument apparently turns on the introduction of an intrinsic axiomatization of pseudo-Riemannian geometry; on the other hand, Weatherall's argument is that the hole argument does not go through on the standard (modern, coordinate-free) formalism of GR. But in fact, we claim, the arguments are much closer than they appear. Weatherall argues that, as a principle of mathematical practice, mathematical objects are defined only up to isomorphism, where what counts as an "isomorphism" for a given mathematical object is determined by the mathematical theory of those objects. And so, when we aim to represent some physical situation using objects of a certain kind, subject to a given mathematical theory, the "representational capacities" of those objects are invariant under isomorphism, meaning that isomorphic objects can represent any given situation equally well. Inasmuch as the standard of isomorphism for pseudo-Riemannian manifolds is isometry, the models of concern in the hole argument have the same representational capacities. From this he concludes that the hole argument is blocked, because any sense in which the models invoked in the hole argument differ is not reflected in their representational capacities. Some parallels with Mundy's argument are immediately apparent. Like Mundy, Weatherall's key premise is that certain mathematical objects -viz. pseudo-Riemannian manifolds -are defined only up to isometry, and for that reason, isometric manifolds are in some sense "the same". Mundy gets to this via an axiomatization and formal semantics; Weatherall gets to it by observing that mathematicians generally intend to attribute to mathematical objects only structure that is preserved by the relevant notion of isomorphism. Both agree that whatever else is the case, putative differences between pseudo-Riemannian manifolds that are not preserved by isometry lack representational, or semantic, significance. Since the hole argument turns on such non-invariant facts, Mundy and Weatherall both conclude that it cannot be stated using just the structure, or language, of GR. But what about where the hole argument goes wrong? Here, Weatherall and Mundy appear to differ. For Weatherall, the problem arises due to a conflation between two different relationships that obtain between (M, g ab ) and (M, g ab ), captured by two different maps between these structures. On the one hand, there is an isometry between (M, g ab ) and (M, g ab ) which is realised by. Compared relative to, (M, g ab ) and (M, g ab ) are merely two set-theoretic representations of a single pseudo-Riemannian manifold. On the other hand, there is the identity map on M, which allows one to talk about particular manifold points. Compared relative to the identity map, (M, g ab ) and (M, g ab ) are not mathematically equivalent. Therefore, although one can say that there are points at which the metric differs when comparing the models using the identity map, one cannot simultaneously maintain that the situations represented by such models are equivalent. As he puts it, "There is a sense in which (M, g ab ) and (M, g ab ) are the same, and there is a sense in which they are different.... But-and this is the central point-one cannot have it both ways" (Weatherall, 2018, p. 338) This part of Weatherall's argument has been particularly controversial. After all, in many contexts it is sensible to say that two (distinct) things are the same in some respects and different in others; such relationships can often be expressed via two or more mappings between those things. 11 We think Weatherall's argument may be clarified, here, by reading it as an alternative statement of Mundy's. For Mundy, recall, what goes wrong in the hole argument is that any differences between isometric spacetimes can only be expressed by moving to the semantic metatheory, where one has additional expressive resources. We suggest that this move to the semantic metalanguage corresponds to what Weatherall takes to be required in order to distinguish (M, g ab ) and (M, g ab ) using the identity on M; namely, "one must be invoking some other, additional structure that is not preserved by isometry" (p. 338). This additional structure is precisely the (extensional) structure concerning the domains, M, that is referred to by the language of the metatheory of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds. Meanwhile, the sense in which the models are the same for Weatherall is that they have the same structure as pseudo-Riemannian manifolds. This explains why, in section 5 of his paper, Weatherall argues the hole argument would go through if one began with a different kind of mathematical structure, where the points of a manifold were associated with unique labels. We now turn to the argument from HoTT/UF. For Shulman, the central claim is that HoTT/UF formalizes, using the methods of intensional type theory, the idea that mathematical objects of a given variety -or, in the formal sense of HoTT, terms of a given type -are defined only up to a specified standard of equivalence. Assertions about those objects within HoTT/UF must be "covariant", i.e., preserved, mutatis mutandis, under equivalences between objects of that type. And for the type "pseudo-Riemannian manifolds", the equivalences are precisely isometries. Thus, as Shulman puts it, "anything we can say in about is automatically covariant under isometry" (p. 53). It follows that the hole argument cannot be formulated within HoTT/UF, because there is no way to express the (non-covariant) claim that the pseudo-Riemannian manifolds (M, g ab ) and (M, g ab ) differ in their assignments of metric values to points. 12 Moreover, Shulman argues that the problem with the hole argument is that it illegitimately conflates two different maps from M to M, much as Weatherall does (p. 40). 13 We take it that this argument is substantially the same as Mundy and Weatherall's. One might respond that there is an important difference: for Shulman, it is HoTT/UF that dissolves the hole argument, whereas neither Weatherall nor Mundy appear to require type theory. But this difference is chimerical. HoTT/UF, for Shulman, is just a way of being precise about the idea that mathematical objects are only defined up to isomorphismsomething Mundy and Weatherall defend on other grounds. One way of thinking about the 12 Ladyman and Presnell argue that in fact, Univalence is not necessary for this conclusion. 13 See also Ladyman and Presnell (2020, p. 323). situation is that HoTT/UF provides an alternative to the set-theoretic semantics that Mundy (explicitly) and Weatherall (implicitly) use for representing pseudo-Riemannian manifolds, preventing one from inadvertently shifting into the semantic metalanguage in the way Mundy and Weatherall criticize. No "Syntactic" Solutions? In the previous section, we isolated an argument -the "mathematical response" to the hole argument -offered, in superficially different forms, by several authors. The mathematical response states that the hole argument, by invoking a privileged identification of spacetime points across models of general relativity, involves assertions, or invokes structure, that go beyond the theory of GR and should be viewed as representationally irrelevant. The various articulations of the mathematical response have been criticised on several fronts. Here we consider two such critiques. The first, due to Rynasiewicz, is directed at Mundy's version of the argument; 14 whereas the second, due to Roberts, is directed at Weatherall's. We suggest that both can be rebutted by keeping in mind the mathematical response as just stated. Rynasiewicz attributes to Mundy the view that "the difficulties allegedly posed evaporate if only the theories in question are suitably formulated in an appropriate formal language. In this sense a syntactic solution to the hole argument" (p. 855). But the hole argument presents a semantic, or metaphysical, problem: it concerns the relationships between possible worlds. And one cannot dissolve an interpretational problem through merely "syntactic" considerations, or by introducing a novel formalism for expressing the theory. If a given formal language is unable to express an interpretational dilemma, it simply lacks the resources to capture something of manifest, prior significance. Moreover, Rynasiewicz argues, the hole argument could be expressed within Mundy's framework if one simply added constants to the theoretical language by which one could specify the coordinates of any point in a given chart. A similar charge might be leveled against Shulman's argument, since he, too, invokes a novel formal framework, and then argues that the hole argument cannot be expressed within that framework. But this response seems to mistake the role that formal methods play for Mundy and Shulman. As we read Mundy, the key issue is not whether the hole argument can be expressed in his preferred axiomatization; rather, it is whether it can be expressed in any language for which model isomorphism coincides with isometry. Shulman, likewise, uses HoTT/UF only to regiment the ideas, already widespread among mathematicians, that mathematical objects are only defined up to some notion of equivalence or isomorphism and reasoning about those objects must be covariant. Rynasiewicz's suggestion that the theory can be extended, meanwhile, amounts to changing GR, so that isometry is no longer the relevant standard of isomorphism. This sort of response is the same as the one Weatherall contemplates when he argues that in running the hole argument, philosophers implicitly augment the structure of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds to compare points across models. But Mundy also anticipates, and rebuts, such a response. He says: "philosophers are welcome to construct modal extensions of physical theories. However, I claim that nothing in standard physical theory supports such extensions: no scientific problem requires introduction of any primitive relation extending across different models. The fact that transworld identity revives the hole argument is merely another objection to it" (p. 522). In other words, while one can extend the theory to accommodate the hole argument, there are no empirical or scientific justifications for doing so. Rynasiewicz goes on to observe that Mundy's argument has the following steps. Suppose that one has a formal semantics for a given theory. Then, isomorphic models satisfy exactly the same sentences. Hence isomorphic models are semantically equivalent. Therefore isomorphic models represent the same physical situations. Rynasiewicz argues that if Mundy gets from to by defining semantic equivalence as satisfying the same sentences, then does not follow from without further assumptions. More importantly, Rynasiewicz contends that these further assumptions must go past merely formal considerations. In particular, Rynasiewicz argues that whether two isomorphic models can represent the same situation depends upon whether the isomorphism "preserves whatever facts must be in place in order to continue to identify the items in the domain of discourse assuming the same repertoire of identification methods" (p. S57), which "transcends standard formal semantics" (S59). Rynasiewicz uses the following example to support this claim. Imagine that one has a deck of cards, and a theory that includes predicates for suit, rank, and order in the deck. This theory tells us the standard facts about a deck of cards, such as the distribution of suit and rank, and it asserts that the order is strictly linear. Now consider a model of this theory, and a map that is a permutation of the domain. One can generate a new model of the theory, isomorphic to the first, via the standard pushforward construction. Mundy, presumably, would say these two models are semantically equivalent. But Rynasiewicz argues that whether we should think of these as representing distinct situations depends on the full set of resources one has for identifying objects in the domain of these models, including ones outside the theory such as whether the cards bear additional, observable markers. We agree that purely formal considerations do not settle the issue. But Rynasiewicz's example is not analogous to the hole argument. The reason is that Rynasiewicz supposes one can (observationally) distinguish his isomorphic models through features that are not represented in the theory. In other words, the theory is only a partial description of the world. For the theory to be a full description, one must extend the theory to include the further properties under consideration. On the other hand, the hole argument is supposed to present a problem for someone who takes GR to provide a complete description of spatio-temporal structure-that is, a "realist" about spacetime in GR. Such a person is not concerned that the theory cannot express physically significant facts about space and time, much less observable ones; to the contrary, they hypothesize that space and time have just the structure described by the theory of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds, and no more. We now turn to Roberts, who, echoing Rynasiewicz, writes that whether isomorphic models of a theory represent the same physical situation depends upon "how we happen to use language to represent the physical world" in a particular domain of discourse. But his argument is different. Roberts claims that Weatherall equivocates between two premises. One, which Roberts accepts as well-motivated, is that isomorphic objects can always represent the same situations. The second, stronger, view is that isomorphic objects can always represent the same situation "at once", or, "in the same concrete interpretation", where by this he means relative to a particular specification of the physical entities to which the elements of the domain of the model correspond. According to Roberts, to block the hole argument one would need to show that any two isometric pseudo-Riemannian manifolds can represent the same physical situation "at once". But this, he argues, cannot be done. Consider the open half-plane (M, g ab ) where M = R (0, ∞) and g ab is the Minkowski metric restricted to this manifold. Now translate the half-plane up by some amount a into itself to produce the model (M, g ab ) where M = R (a, ∞). This translated model is isometric to the first. But (M, g ab ) is also a proper subset of (M, g ab ), since (a, ∞) is a proper subset of (0, ∞). Since a proper subset of a spacetime represents only "part" of the physical situation that the original spacetime does, these two models, despite being isometric, cannot represent the same situation "at once". Roberts allows that an applied mathematician can neglect this relationship between the models-but only by allowing the concrete interpretation of the models to vary. Thus mathematical considerations alone cannot block the hole argument; in addition, one needs to make further interpretational choices about how to use mathematical models in specific representational contexts. It should be clear from the foregoing that Roberts' example makes use of the semantic metatheory; one cannot distinguish the open half-plane and its translated model within the theoretical language, since the models are isomorphic. At issue is whether one must invoke the semantic metatheory in the way he does. Roberts' picture of "concrete" representation using a given physical theory seems to be that one first constructs formal models of a theory, and then one identifies elements of the domains of those models with objects in the world. In other words, for Roberts representation necessarily operates at the level of metatheory, and models of a theory should be taken to have all of the structure describable at the metatheoretic level. But this is a view of representation that advocates of the mathematical response would reject, on the grounds that the representational capacities of mathematical objects are precisely those preserved by isomorphism. What Does the Mathematical Response Really Amount To? We have argued in the foregoing that Mundy, Weatherall, and Shulman all raise the same objection to the hole argument, despite invoking different mathematical formalisms to do so. All of them claim that if spacetime has the structure of a pseudo-Riemannian manifold, then, since pseudo-Riemannian manifolds are defined only up to isometry, the differences between isometric models considered in the hole argument have no representational or semantic significance. We then considered two counterarguments. Both begged the question against the mathematical response: Rynasiewicz denied that spacetime has the structure of a pseudo-Riemannian manifold and Roberts adopted a theory of representation rejected by Mundy et al. This discussion suggests that the real issue is what it means to say that some part of the world has a certain structure or is described by some theory. In this regard, it parallels other, long-standing disputes in philosophy. Rynasiewicz, in responding to Mundy, suggests that the hole argument is analogous to the classic problem of reference, raised by Quine, Davidson, and Putnam. Given any model of a formal theory representing some domain of discourse, one can always build an isomorphic model by permuting elements of its domain and then pushing forward the properties, relations, etc. along that permutation. But, the argument goes, this means the formal theory cannot determine which model assigns these properties, etc. to the "right" object. For Rynasiewicz, this analogy to the problem of reference shows that whether two models of a formal theory can represent the same situation depends on further, extra-theoretic facts about how we individuate objects. Roberts does not invoke the problem of reference, but he seems to adopt a similar perspective, since within a given concrete representation, he takes permutations on the domain of a model to generate changes in what physical objects are taken to instantiate what properties. But the advocate for the mathematical response would presumably deny that there is any problem of reference in the first place, at least for theories that one takes to fully characterize their subject matter. After all, to generate the problem for any given theory, one must move from the formal theory under consideration to the metatheory. And the metatheory is representationally irrelevant. To deny this in the case of GR is to deny that a century of physics has given us good reasons to believe that space and time have a particular structure, fully characterized by a theory where the correct standard of equivalence for its models is isometry. One chooses such a formalism precisely because there is no physical reason to include more. Anyone who wishes to claim that GR is incomplete in this regard needs to provide some justification for extending the theory. And it is hard to see why that is motivated. |
A lot of smartphone owners out there who use the camera frequently are counting the days until smartphone cameras improve. Most of them work fine at closer distances, but if you are far away, you end up with subjects too small to see. What smartphones really need is a camera with optical zoom.
Samsung has offered an optical zoom camera in the past, but it wasn't very popular. Images of a new Samsung smartphone with optical zoom have leaked and the device is said to be called the Samsung Galaxy K. The big feature of this smartphone is that it has a 10x optical zoom lens and this is the first time the smartphone has been spied with the lens out.
Unlike the other optical zoom smartphone Samsung offered, the Galaxy K still has a familiar smartphone form factor. Other rumored specs for the phone include a 6-core processor, 2 GB of RAM, and a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED HD screen. The sensor inside that 10x optical zoom camera is a 20MP unit and it has xenon flash. A 2MP front camera and Android 4.2.2 is also rumored. |
<reponame>DaviddeMiguel/meslize-fotomaton
package com.meslize.fotomaton.detail;
import java.io.File;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Locale;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.graphics.Bitmap;
import android.graphics.Canvas;
import android.graphics.Color;
import android.net.Uri;
import android.support.v4.app.Fragment;
import com.framework.library.controller.Controller;
import com.framework.library.memory.FileCache;
import com.framework.library.util.DateTime;
import com.meslize.fotomaton.model.Path;
import com.meslize.fotomaton.view.PictureView.Area;
public class DetailFragmentController extends Controller {
private final static String FILE_PATH = "Android/data/";
private final static String FILE_NAME_DNI = "fotomaton_dni";
private final static String FILE_NAME = "fotomaton";
private final static String FILE_EXTENSION = ".jpg";
private FileCache fileCache;
private String resultPath;
public DetailFragmentController(Fragment fragment) {
super(fragment);
createPath();
}
public void createPath(){
resultPath = FILE_PATH + getActivity().getPackageName() + "/" + new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd_HHmmss", Locale.GERMANY).format(new Date()) + "/";
}
public void galleryAddPicture(String path) {
Intent mediaScanIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_MEDIA_SCANNER_SCAN_FILE);
File f = new File(path);
Uri contentUri = Uri.fromFile(f);
mediaScanIntent.setData(contentUri);
getContext().sendBroadcast(mediaScanIntent);
}
public Path saveCutPicture(Area area, Bitmap bitmap){
if(area.x > 0 && area.y > 0 && area.width < bitmap.getWidth() && area.height < bitmap.getHeight()){
Bitmap bitmapDni = Bitmap.createBitmap(bitmap, area.x, area.y, area.width, area.height);
fileCache = new FileCache(getActivity(), resultPath);
File file = fileCache.saveBitmap(bitmapDni, FILE_NAME_DNI + FILE_EXTENSION, Bitmap.CompressFormat.JPEG, 90);
String thumbPath = file.getAbsolutePath();
galleryAddPicture(thumbPath);
String combinedPath = combineImages(4, 2, bitmapDni);
galleryAddPicture(combinedPath);
Path path = new Path(new DateTime(new Date()).toStringRfc3339(), combinedPath, thumbPath);
return path;
}else{
return null;
}
}
public String combineImages(int copyNumberPerRow, int copyNumberRows, Bitmap bitmap) {
Bitmap result = Bitmap.createBitmap((bitmap.getWidth() * copyNumberPerRow) + (copyNumberPerRow * 2), (bitmap.getHeight() * copyNumberRows) + (copyNumberRows * 2), Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888);
Canvas comboImage = new Canvas(result);
comboImage.drawColor(Color.WHITE);
for(int i=0; i<copyNumberRows; i++){
for(int j=0; j<copyNumberPerRow; j++){
comboImage.drawBitmap(bitmap, (j * bitmap.getWidth()) + (j * 2) , i * bitmap.getHeight() + (i * 2), null);
}
}
fileCache = new FileCache(getActivity(), resultPath);
File file = fileCache.saveBitmap(result, FILE_NAME + Calendar.getInstance().getTimeInMillis() + FILE_EXTENSION, Bitmap.CompressFormat.JPEG, 90);
return file.getAbsolutePath();
}
}
|
Highly efficient sky-blue light-emitting diodes based on Cu-treated halide perovskite nanocrystals Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) based on lead halide perovskite (LHP) nanocrystals (NCs) have received plenty of attention in recent years, owing to their excellent colour purity and easily tunable emission colour. However, the efficiency of LHP NC-based LEDs generally lags behind that of polycrystalline LHP thin-film-based LEDs, especially for blue LEDs. In this work, we synthesize bromide-based LHP NCs, treat them with CuCl2 in a simple post-processing way, and apply the obtained NCs for the fabrication of sky-blue LEDs. The results of device characterization indicate a significant impact of the solvent used in the NC dispersion on the efficiency and spectral stability of the LEDs. The champion device, based on NCs with optimized ligands, results in an external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 5.02% and a luminance of 130 cd m−2 at the maximum EQE. This work provides a novel and promising way for the fabrication of highly efficient LHP NC-based blue LEDs. |
Nonimmune hydrops fetalis due to autosomal recessive hereditary spherocytosis Background Hereditary spherocytosis is the most common form of inherited hemolytic anemia and is characterized by a structural defect in the RBC membrane. The disorder is commonly inherited in an autosomal dominant fashion and leads to a mild to moderate anemia. The autosomal recessive form of hereditary spherocytosis is rarely reported in association with fetal anemia and hydrops fetalis. Case A 25 year old G5 P2112 at 25 2/7 weeks gestation presents with severe fetal anemia and nonimmune hydrops fetalis requiring multiple fetal intrauterine transfusions. After delivery, the neonate required several double volume exchange transfusions and ultimately was diagnosed with autosomal recessive hereditary spherocytosis weeks after birth. The neonate was identified to have a rare homozygous genetic mutation, SPTA1c.6154delG, which leads to absent production of normal -spectrin. Conclusion The case highlights the importance of considering less common genetic mutations involving the RBC structural proteins when patients present with severe fetal anemia and nonimmune hydrops fetalis. Introduction Hereditary spherocytosis is the most common form of inherited hemolytic anemia, affecting approximately 1 in 5000 patients. Most cases of hereditary spherocytosis are inherited as an autosomal dominant disorder, but approximately 25% of individuals will have either a de novo mutation or autosomal recessive inheritance. The disorder causes abnormalities in the red blood cell (RBC) membrane due to a genetic defect in one of the five following proteins, ankyrin-1, band 3, spectrin, spectrin, or protein 4.2. The clinical presentation of patients with hereditary spherocytosis is extremely variable and ranges from mild to severe depending on the genetic mutation and deficient protein. There have been several reported cases in the literature where severe hemolytic anemia from hereditary spherocytosis has led to nonimmune hydrops fetalis. Nonimmune hydrops fetalis (NIH) is a condition that can be diagnosed by prenatal ultrasound with findings that include fetal ascites, pleural effusions, pericardial effusions, and skin edema. There are a multitude of pathologic causes for NIH including chromosomal abnormalities, maternal infections, cardiovascular malformations of the fetus, genetic metabolic diseases and fetal anemia, amongst others. Fetal anemia resulting from RBC enzyme deficiencies, such as hereditary spherocytosis, must be considered in the evaluation for nonimmune fetal hydrops. The following case illustrates a fetus with NIH resulting from severe fetal anemia due to autosomal recessive hereditary spherocytosis. Case A 25 year old G5 P2112 presents at 25 2/7 weeks gestation for polyhydramnios, fetal abdominal ascites and pericardial effusion on outside ultrasound. Initial MFM ultrasound reveals severe hydrops fetalis with abdominal ascites, pericardial effusion, skin edema, and significant cardiomegaly with thickened myocardium (Figs. 1 and 2). Middle cerebral artery (MCA) Doppler was found to be elevated with a peak systolic velocity of 57.1 cm/s, consistent with moderate to severe fetal anemia at the current gestational age. Maternal obstetrical history was significant for a previous neonatal demise. The couple's second child was born at 28 weeks gestation and lived for 90 min. Prenatally, the child was noted to have hydrops fetalis but there was no evaluation or interventions other than a possible diagnosis of trachea-esophageal fistula after birth. The couple has two other living children with no known medical problems. The couple is Mennonite and consanguineous third cousins without significant family history of anemia, thalassemia, or family members requiring blood transfusion. However, several cousins on the maternal side of the family required splenectomies. Maternal and negative antibody screen. The patient denied any sick contacts. Maternal Parvovirus B19 IgG and IgM were found to be negative at presentation. Further infectious evaluation was deferred due to the patient's uninsured status. The decision was made to proceed with amniocentesis for fetal karyotype and percutaneous umbilical cord blood sampling (PUBS) with possible fetal intrauterine transfusion (IUT) if indicated at 25 3/ 7 weeks gestation. MCA Doppler prior to procedure was 60.52 cm/s. Amniocentesis resulted in a normal XX female. A successful PUBS was performed and fetal blood was sent for evaluation with an initial hemoglobin and hematocrit of 2.5 g/dL and 8.2%. Fetal IUT was then performed and a post-transfusion hemoglobin and hematocrit resulted 11 g/dL and 31.9%. Furthermore, the post-transfusion MCA Doppler was 26.2 cm/s, which was within normal limits. Within two weeks of the initial IUT, fetal skin edema resolved and there was significant improvement in fetal ascities and pericardial effusion; however, cardiomegaly persisted throughout the remainder of the pregnancy (Figs. 3 and 4). The fetus required four additional PUBS procedures, occurring at two to three week intervals, based on worsening MCA Doppler studies. Of note, the patient received antenatal steroid administration prior to the first PUBS procedure at 25 2/ 7 weeks gestation and rescue steroid administration at 34 1/7 weeks gestation. Labor induction was started at 34 3/7 weeks gestation, 48 h after the last IUT, as the patient was 4 cm dilated after the fifth procedure. The patient underwent a spontaneous vaginal delivery of a viable female infant weighing 2220 g with Apgars of 7 and 8 at one and 5 min, respectively. Initial laboratory evaluation revealed a hemoglobin and hematocrit of 17.2 g/dL and 51.5%. Neonatal echocardiogram showed significant biventricular hypertrophy but good left ventricular function. The baby was found to have hepatosplenomegaly on physical exam with the liver edge 3 cm below the right costal margin. Liver function panel revealed a total bilirubin of 13.5 mg/dL and direct bilirubin of 1.6 mg/dL, which led to initiation of intensive phototherapy, intravenous immunoglobulin and a double volume exchange transfusion. The total bilirubin peaked at 21.4 mg/dL and the baby required three A complete genetic, metabolic and infectious workup has been negative for the infant since birth. Parental RBC cross-matching did not reveal any alloimmune causes of RBC destruction. The Cincinnati Hemolytic Anemia next generation sequencing panel was performed and found the baby to be homozygous for the SPTA1c.6154delG genetic mutation, which leads to absence of production of normal alpha-spectrin, consistent with autosomal recessive hereditary spherocytosis. The neonate went on to require a transfusion of packed red blood cells (PRBC) at 23 days old when she was found to have a hemoglobin level of 7 g/dL. Within two weeks of her initial postnatal PRBC transfusion, the infant's hemoglobin dropped below 8 g/dL and she received a second transfusion. The infant has been reticulocytopenic since birth, which is due to suppression of erythrocyte production from multiple fetal and neonatal transfusions and likely hemolysis of her own new RBCs. It is anticipated that the infant will require PRBC transfusions every three to four weeks, in order to maintain her hemoglobin level above 8 g/dL. She currently remains under the care of a pediatric hematologist and further spectrin studies are planned when the infant begins producing reticulocytes. Discussion This case report represents a rare genetic mutation of the SPTA1 gene that has not previously been documented in the literature. There is a previous case report where autosomal recessive hereditary spherocytosis due to -spectrin deficiency resulted in Coombs-negative hemolytic jaundice in a neonate. Ultimately, -spectrin deficiency leads to less than 5% of hereditary spherocytosis cases; however, it does result in severe hemolytic anemia that can be life threatening in the fetus and/or neonate. It is important to consider autosomal recessive hereditary spherocytosis in the differential diagnosis for a fetus that presents with severe NIH due to fetal anemia. Typically, hereditary spherocytosis is an autosomal dominant disorder resulting in mild to moderate anemia and would only be considered as a differential diagnosis if there were a significant family history. Regarding our case, anemia had not been previously diagnosed in either the mother or father. Parental complete blood cell counts revealed normal hemoglobin, hematocrit, RBC indices and platelet count. Furthermore, both parental peripheral blood smears showed normal RBC, platelet and WBC morphology and no spherocytes were noted. Thus, autosomal dominant hereditary spherocytosis was ruled out as a potential etiology. Due to the consanguinity of the parents, autosomal recessive disorders that may lead to severe fetal anemia should always be evaluated no matter how rare. In the heterozygous state, individuals with the SPTA1c.6154delG genetic mutation will produce an adequate amount of -spectrin and are asymptomatic with normal RBC indices and no spherocytosis on peripheral blood smear. After identification of our infant's genetic mutation, both the mother and father are obligate carriers of the SPTA1 mutation. Future offspring have a 25% risk of inheriting hereditary spherocytosis and they may also present with severe fetal anemia and NIH requiring fetal intrauterine transfusion. It is suspected that the couple's previous neonatal demise also suffered from hereditary spherocytosis. In conclusion, our case highlights a genetic mutation of the SPTA1 gene that has not been previously reported in literature. This specific mutation in the homozygous state leads to severe fetal anemia and NIH that requires fetal intrauterine transfusion for fetal survival. Rare autosomal recessive disorders of the RBC membrane should be included in the differential diagnosis for NIH, especially in patients with consanguinity. Disclosure Statements There are no financial disclosures or conflicts of interest. Funding Source This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. |
<reponame>devMiguelFerrer/cards
import { IGenericRepository } from '../Domain/IGenericRepository';
export class UpdateGeneric<T> {
constructor(private repository: IGenericRepository<T>, private body: T) {}
async dispatch(): Promise<T> {
return this.repository.update(this.body);
}
}
|
An Ultraviolet (UV) Detector Using a Ferroelectric Thin Film With In-Plane Polarization Different from the semiconductor photovoltaic device on the basis of an interfacial effect, UV detection was realized in this letter by using bulk photovoltaic mechanism involving the depolarization field in a W-doped Pb0.97La0.03(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 (PLWZT) ferroelectric thin film. A prototype of UV detector was demonstrated in the laboratory as well as under sunlight, in which the ferroelectric PLWZT thin film was polarized in the plane of the film surface. Characteristics of the photovoltaic response of the ferroelectric thin films and their application values for UV detection were analyzed. |
TAXONOMIC REVISION OF NIGERIAN SPECIES OF Capsicum L. BASED ON SOME MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS Received 01 February 2021 Accepted 17 March 2021 Available online 26 March 2021 Species of Capsicum L. are closely related plants whose taxonomic status has remained controversial among different taxonomists. This study was designed to examine the taxonomic status of the species of Capsicum in Nigeria in order to establish the genetic variation between the species for the purpose of identification, as well as review the infrageneric classification (INC) of the members of the genus. Germplasm collection of the seeds of five cultivars of Capsicum were regenerated and nurtured to fruiting. Variations in their vegetative and reproductive morphology were macroscopically evaluated in replicates of 30 individuals per cultivar for each character, which equals 150 samples altogether. The cultivars of each species was hierarchically clustered as operational taxonomic units (OTUs) using Wards method with squared Euclidean distance. Artificial key was also constructed for the identification of the species in the genus. The twenty-three morphological characters adopted gave useful insights into the INC of the species and were sufficiently diagnostic of the species as evidenced by the artificial key. Through this study, some light has been shed on the delimitation of species and varieties of the Nigerian Capsicum. INTRODUCTION The genus Capsicum in Nigeria has not been thoroughly revised, classified and identified especially using morphological characters. There is a dearth of information on the exact number of Capsicum species and varieties found in the country. At the moment, no satisfactory revision of the morphology of the Nigerian genera of Capsicum is available. Apart from this challenge, it has been observed that some authors have misrepresented some Nigerian species of Capsicum due to lack of proper identification. E.g. in Edeoga et al., 'tatashe' (local name for C. annuum) was regarded as a variety of C. frutescens. The boundaries between some of the species are still ill-defined, with many of the taxa proving to possess not more than slight morphological variations from those already described. Even where the revisions of the genera are in existence, the situation is further complicated by the researchers who always either treat different members of the genera as varieties of particular species or considered them as different species on the basis of morphological differences (Schilling and Andersen, 1990;Edmonds and Chweya, 1997;Grubben and El Tahir, 2004). Mainly, the disagreements among taxonomists on Capsicum taxonomy include species boundaries and importance of some morphological characters over others. It is agreeable that when classification is confused, so is nomenclature and literally any information about such taxa is unspecific and definitely, less useful. Capsicum crops are perennial crops with densely branched stems and an average height of 0.5 -1.0 meters, which are usually grown annually (Young and Tarawou, 2014). They are important crops not only because of their economic importance but also for the nutritional value of their fruits, being a major source of natural colours and antioxidant compounds (). In fact, Iwegbue et al. stated that support for increased production and consumption of fresh vegetables such as Capsicum annuum is an important goal. Pepper is a largely widespread spice with annual world production in the year 2004 evaluated to 23 million tons from a total of 1.54 million ha (). Despite the importance of Capsicum spp (), there is currently no consensus classification of Capsicum itself. The infrageneric taxa proposed by Kuntze and Bitter have later been recognised asthe segregate genera: Witheringia, Brachistus, Saracha Ruiz and Pav. TuboCapsicum (Wettst.) Makino, Aureliana. More recently, different classical and molecular cytogenetic analyses, crossing experiments, enzymatic studies, and chloroplast and nuclear DNA sequence studies (), have allowed considerable progress in the characterization of infrageneric groups in Capsicum. At present, there is no worldwide accepted formal infrageneric classification of Capsicum. Two attempts at grouping the species were made based on cytogenetic studies (), and a combination of data from enzyme, crossing and molecular studies (Walsh and Hoot, 2001). In both studies, the informal classification was still considered provisional despite more than 50% of the species having been analysed. Barboza designated lectotypes for 14 species names of the genus, and these were synonymised under their accepted names in Capsicum. In addition, a new name in Capsicum was proposed. In each case, the locality information given for the lectotype corresponded with the information found on the specimen itself. Anatomy of Capsicum in Nigeria has been studied by Mbagwu et al., Nwachukwu et al., Adedeji et al. and Edeoga et al.. Edeoga et al. studied the role of leaf exomorphology in the taxonomy of Capsicum annum and C. frutescens and reported the anatomical markers for only these two. C. chinense which is also a common species in Nigeria was not included in the study while the authors did not elucidate the details of the trichomes of the two taxa that they examined. Adedeji et al. embarked on the study of the organographic distribution and taxonomic importance of trichomes in the family Solanaceae involving only six Nigerian species of t he family namely; Capsicum frutescens L., Solanum pimpinellifolium (Jusl.) Mill., S. macrocarpon Linn., Solanum torvum Sw., Solanum nigrum Linn. an d Nicot-iana tabacum Linn. based on the findings, these authors suggested that lycopersicum which had earlier been regarded as a species of Solanum, should be placed in a separate genus. This study sought to undertake a vegetative and reproductive morphological revision of Capsicum species in Nigeria with a view to examining their taxonomic status as well as provide markers for their identification. Taxonomic Treatments of the Sample A total of 23 characters were drawn out from the leaves, fruits and seeds of the five cultivars of Capsicum. The qualitative characters obtained were first quantified by scoring presence as "1" and absence as"0". Quantitative readings were taken in 30 replicates; one from each individual of a cultivar, which equals a total of 150 samples. Means and levels of significance (Duncan's) were determined by the use of SPSS statistical software, the 19.0 version. Thereafter, the scores of both qualitative and quantitative characters were used as characters to perform a cluster analysis on the five cultivars, each of which was taken as an operational taxonomic unit (OTU). A dendrogram was constructed using PAST statistical software () by adopting a hierarchical cluster analysis using Ward's method applying squared Euclidean Distance. Using both the qualitative and quantitative morphological characters obtained, a dichotomous key was constructed for the purpose of diagnosing the five varieties. Qualitative leaf morphological features in the five cultivars of Capsicum studied were fairly constant, all the leaves being simple, lanceolate in shape with sparse to fair pubescence, entire margin, pinnate venation, acuminate tip, and oblique-cuneate to cuneate base. On the other hand, the features of the fruits and the seeds (Figure 1 and 2; Table 2) were fairly diagnostic. While the seed shape was generally discoid and flattened, the fruit shape ranged from campanulate in C. chinense to blocky in C. annuum and elongate in the other three cultivars of C. fructescens. The seed colour observed for most of the cultivars was straw, with those of C. annuum and C fructescens var. sombo being brown and cream-brown respectively. Surface texture was generally smooth except for the seeds of C. annuum which had rough texture (Table 2). The quantitative results of leaf morphology are presented in Table 3 while those of the fruits and seeds are in Table 4. Mean lamina length which ranged between 6.61 cm (in C. fructescens var. ijosi) and 8.92 cm (in C. fructescens var. bawa), showed a significant difference across the five cultivars studied, but this was not observed for the other four leaf morphological features (Table 4). The mean fruit length and width were also observed to be diagnostic among the cultivars of Capsicum studied. C. fructescens var. ijosi had the shortest fruit length (i.e. 1.21 cm), a mean value which was significantly shorter than the fruits in the others, while C. fructescens var. bawa with mean fruit length of 10.70 cm was significantly longer than the fruits of the others. The highest fruit width with the mean value of 3.20 cm was observed in C. annuum, which along with that of C. chinense were significantly wider than the other fruits observed. Lastly, C. fructescens var. ijosi which recorded the shortest mean fruit value (0.60 cm) was also next to C. fructescens var. sombo (0.58 cm), the fruits of both, being significantly narrower than the other three (Table 4). Figure 1 shows the dendrogram obtained when a cluster analysis was performed on the morphological characters from leaves, fruits and seeds of the five cultivars of Capsicum studied. From this dendrogram, three groupings are evident at 66.67% distance as follows: a direct (same level) cluster of C. fructescens var. bawa and C annuum; a middle branch containing C. chinense alone; and a first branch of C. fructescens var. sombo and C. fructescens var. ijosi. The dendrogram is suggestive of some closeness in distance between C. chinense, C. fructescens var. bawa and C. annuum as compared to C. chinense and the other two cultivars. Biosystematic implications of the morphological features observed in Capsicum Relatively little work had been carried out on the morphology of the Nigerian species of Capsicum. Evaluation of the morphological and leaf epidermal features of C. annum and C. frutescens carried out by Nwachukwu et al. showed certain characteristics that were of some taxonomic value. According to these authors, the vegetative features of habit and height of C. annum separated it from C. frutescens. Okwulehi and Okoli and Edeoga and Eboka had earlier used comparative morphology of different species of Capsicum in establishing relationship among various taxa while Okeke and Nwachukwu reported morphological markers in the family Euphorbiaceae. The results of the present study are partly at variance to those of Nwachukwu et al. because the authors described the leaf tips and leaf bases of C. annuum and C. fructescens as mucronate and round respectively. This probably may be as a result of misidentification or use of improper description chart. Some taxonomists are of the opinion that much of the proliferation of synonyms in Capsicum had been due to differences in fruit characters. The findings of the present study with regard to morphological features appear to be in consonance with this position. There seems to be no agreement yet with regard to the number of species of Capsicum present in West Africa. Wilson (1959Wilson (, 1961 agreed to the presence of only two species, C. annum and C. frutescens while some other taxonomists proposed that all other purportedly recognized species were forms of either C. annum or C. frutescens. It can be deduced from Figure. 1 that morphological variations between the cultivars studied may have some relation to their quality of Capsaicin contents. Based on their fruit taste (hotness), the five cultivars can be listed in increasing order of their hotness (and hence, capsaicin content) as C. annuum, C. fructescens var. bawa, C. chinense, C. fructescens var. sombo and C. fructescens var. ijosi () Interestingly, the cluster obtained followed this arrangement (Figure 1) with ijosi and sombo clustering as hot-taste cultivars, bawa and C. annuum clustering as mildtaste cultivars while C. chinense alone clustered as a cultivar with intermediate taste. This finding supports that of Adepoju et al. in which two Nigerian pepper varieties of C. fructescens (ijosi and sombo) formed a taxonomic cluster, different from the cluster formed by bawa, annuum and chinense, based on their seed protein profiles. The infrageneric classification of Capsicum proposed by McLeod et al. based on isozyme data and flower colour suggested two groups; C. annuum as one; and other species (fructescens and chinense) as the other. This study partly agrees with the findings of McLeod et al. in that C. chinense clustered separately as a species and with just one of the varieties of C. fructescens, while C. annuum was distinct. However, contrary to the findings of McLeod et al., this study reveals that C. annuum may be closer to C. chinense than to C. fructescens, two varieties which clustered far away from C. annuum. Based on the morphological results obtained, from this study, qualitative and quantitative features of the fruits and seeds in particular can be said to be of some value for both classificatory and diagnostic purposes in the genus Capsicum. Table 5 is a morphology-based key, usable for the identification of the five cultivars studied. CONCLUSION Evaluation of vegetative and reproductive morphological features of Nigerian Capsicum has perfectly confirmed extant clusters of taxa based on their fruit capsaicin content (which is responsible for fruit hotness). It has thus assisted to reaffirm earlier taxonomic groupings of C. chinense as a separate species from C. annuum but not C. fructescens from the two. This study has established some concordance between fruit capsaicin content in Capsicum and infrageneric taxonomic groupings based on conventional morphological characters. Variations in vegetative and reproductive morphological features in Nigerian species of Capsicum have hereby been documented in form of unambiguous artificial key for proper identification of the taxa. |
// in the name of God
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <string>
#include <algorithm>
#include <cmath>
#define ll long long
using namespace std;
ll two[1000005];
int main(){
ios::sync_with_stdio(false);
ll ans = 0, ten = 1, prv = 0;
string rs, frt, scnd;
ll a, b; cin >> rs >> a >> b;
for (int i = rs.size() - 1; i >= 0; i--){
prv = (ten*(rs[i] - 48) + prv) % b;
ten = (ten * 10) % b;
two[i] = prv;
}
for (int i = 0; i < rs.size() - 1; i++){
ans = (ans * 10 + rs[i] - 48) % a;
if (!ans && rs[i + 1] != 48 && !two[i + 1]){
cout << "YES" << endl;
cout << rs.substr(0, i + 1) << endl << rs.substr(i + 1) << endl;
return 0;
}
}
cout << "NO" << endl;
return 0;
} |
The Myth of the Eclectic IR Scholar? What does the decline in paradigmatic self-identification mean for how international relations (IR) scholars think about the world? We answer this question with a 2020 survey among nearly two thousand IR scholars. We uncover a two-dimensional latent theoretical belief space based on scholarly agreement with conjectures about the state, ideas, international institutions, domestic politics, globalization, and racism. The first dimension separates status quooriented scholars from more critical scholars. The second dimension captures the realistinstitutionalist divide. We have three key findings. First, non-paradigmatic scholars vary greatly in their theoretical beliefs. Second, measurement invariance tests show that there is a similar structure underlying the beliefs of paradigmatic and non-paradigmatic scholars. Third, we find no evidence that non-paradigmatic scholars rely less on their theoretical beliefs in making predictions about conflict, institutions, political economy, democracy, and human rights. Instead, the positions of scholars in the two-dimensional theoretical belief space rather than self-assigned paradigmatic labels correlate with predictions about the world. Our findings suggest that non-paradigmatic scholars are not so different from self-identified Liberals, Constructivists, and Realists, although the decline of paradigmatic self-identification may still matter for how scholars organize debates and disciplinary divides. |
//<NAME>
#ifndef _ORTHOGRAPHICOBJECT_H_
#define _ORTHOGRAPHICOBJECT_H_
#include "Displayable.h"
#include "Updatable.h"
class OrthographicObject :
public Displayable,
public Updatable
{
public:
OrthographicObject();
virtual ~OrthographicObject();
virtual void update(double time) = 0;
virtual void draw() const = 0;
//x,y at lower left
void setOrthoMode(double x, double y, double width, double height, double nearClip = -1000, double farClip = 1000);
void enterOrthoMode() const;
void exitOrthoMode() const;
//TODO: make an orthographic display manager that takes care of orthographic projection
virtual void display() const; //takes care of orthographic projection stuff
private:
double orthoX_, orthoY_, orthoWidth_, orthoHeight_, orthoNear_, orthoFar_;
};
#endif |
Framework and Conceptual Model for Reconfiguration Reconfiguration is a significant area of after-sales, especially for companies with configurable products. In this paper, the field of reconfiguration is characterised and framework for reconfiguration is presented on the basis of the experiences gathered from Finnish manufacturing companies. Although the state of the practice leaves much room for improvement, reconfiguration is important business in several companies. Based on the framework, an |
Sedation for endoscopy: midazolam or diazepam and pethidine? One hundred patients received either diazepam given with pethidine, antagonized with naloxone, or midazolam alone in a double-blind randomized study of sedation for upper gastrointestinal endoscopy. Midazolam produced better amnesia for the procedure (P less than 0.0001) but diazepam and pethidine resulted in less retching during the procedure (P less than 0.01) and less sedation after the procedure, as judged by a simple performance test (P less than 0.02) and patient recall of results (P less than 0.02). |
Characterization of the histidine residues in alkaline phosphatase by carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance. beta,beta-Dideuteriohistidine has been biosynthetically incorporated into alkaline phosphatase from Escherichia coli and utilized as a nonperturbing 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) probe of the environments of the histidine residues in this zinc metalloenzyme. The 13C NMR spectrum of the labeled enzyme exhibits 9 separate resonances arising from the 10 histidine residues located in each of the symmetrically disposed subunits of the dimer. The excellent resolution and large chemical shift range (14 ppm) displayed by these signals are direct consequences of the sensitivity of the histidine gamma-carbon chemical shift to the ionization state and tautomeric form of the imidazole side chains and the coordination of several of these to metal ion. The environments of the individual histidine residues were inferred by investigating the chemical shift responses of their 13C resonances to enzyme metal composition, pH, and inhibitor binding. Additional information concerning their motional freedom was obtained from spin relaxation measurements which were analyzed in terms of the contributions expected from intramolecular 13C-1H and 13C-14N dipolar relaxation and chemical shift anisotropy. The combined results indicate that 4 of the 10 histidines, the only ones that titrate with pH, are surface residues located relatively remote from the active site. Of the six nontitrating residues, one appears to be buried in a solvent-inaccessible region of the protein. Three others are almost certainly involved in metal ion ligation to active-site metal ion(s), two via their N pi nitrogen atoms and the other via N pi. The spectral characteristics of the remaining two histidine residues strongly suggest they are also located at or near the active site. One or both may also participate in metal ion coordination, although the current evidence for this is inconclusive. |
/**
* Reads memory content at the specified pointer and produces a String with hex codes and
* character data in case the memory contains bytes in ascii range.
*
* @param buf byte buffer
* @param size number of bytes to read
* @param cols number of bytes written in on eline
* @return memory dump
*/
public static String dumpAsAscii(ByteBuffer buf, int size, int cols) {
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
int i = 0;
size = Math.min(size, buf.limit());
while (i < size) {
sb.append("[");
for (int c=0; c<cols; c++) {
if (c>0)
sb.append(' ');
if ((i+c) < size) {
byte b = buf.get(i+c);
if (b >=0 && b < 16)
sb.append("0");
sb.append(Integer.toHexString(b & 0xFF));
}
else {
sb.append(" ");
}
}
sb.append("]");
sb.append(" ");
sb.append("[");
for (int c=0; c<cols; c++) {
if ((i+c) < size) {
byte b = buf.get(i+c);
int bAsInt = (b & 0xff);
if (bAsInt >= 32 && bAsInt<=126) {
sb.append((char) (b & 0xFF));
}
else {
sb.append(".");
}
}
else {
sb.append(" ");
}
}
sb.append("]\n");
i += cols;
}
return sb.toString();
} |
export default interface IClearable {
clear(): void;
}
|
Inhibition of acid-induced apoptosis by targeting ASIC1a mRNA with short hairpin RNA AbstractAim:To study the role of acid-sensing ion channel (ASIC) 1a in the cell death and apoptosis induced by extracellular acid in C6 glioma cells.Methods:The stable ASIC1a-silenced C6 cell line, built with RNA interference technology, were confirmed by RT-PCR and Western blot analysis. The cell viability following acid exposure was analyzed with lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. The apoptotic cells dyed with Annexin-V and propidium iodide were measured with a flow cytometer, while the changes of cell cycle were also assayed.Results:The downregulation of ASIC1a proteins by stable transfection of short hairpin RNA decreased the cell death percentage and increased cell viability following acid exposure with LDH and the MTT assay. The rate of apoptosis was lower in the ASIC1a-silenced cell line than that in the wild-type C6 cell line. The percentage of sub-G0 cells was lower in the ASIC1a-silenced C6 cells than that in the wild-type cells.Conclusion:Extracellular acid induced cell death and apoptosis via ASIC1a mechanisms in the C6 glioma cells. |
<filename>src/app/shared/services/user.service.ts
import {Injectable} from "@angular/core";
import {JwtHelper} from "angular2-jwt";
import {TOKEN_NAME} from "./auth.constant";
import {Http} from "@angular/http";
/**
* Created by MCKM on 2017-10-17.
*/
@Injectable()
export class UserService {
jwtHelper: JwtHelper = new JwtHelper();
accessToken: string;
constructor(private http: Http) {
}
getLoggedInUserData(){
var username = this.jwtHelper.decodeToken(localStorage.getItem("access_token")).sub;
return this.http.get("http://localhost:8081/users/"+username, null)
.map(res => res.json());
}
login(accessToken: string) {
console.log(accessToken);
const decodedToken = this.jwtHelper.decodeToken(accessToken);
console.log(decodedToken);
this.accessToken = accessToken;
localStorage.setItem(TOKEN_NAME, accessToken);
}
logout() {
this.accessToken = null;
localStorage.removeItem(TOKEN_NAME);
}
}
|
N, K = map(int, input().split())
A = list(map(int, input().split()))
def gcd(x, y):
if x > y:
x, y = y, x
if y % x == 0:
return x
y = y % x
return gcd(x, y)
n = A[0]
for i in A:
n = gcd(n, i)
flag = False
for i in A:
if i >= K and (i - K) % n == 0:
flag = True
break
else:
pass
if flag:
print ('POSSIBLE')
else:
print ('IMPOSSIBLE') |
<reponame>trumanwong/leetcode<filename>algorithms/1101.TheEarliestMomentWhenEveryoneBecomeFriends/earliestAcq/earliestAcq.go
package earliestAcq
func EarliestAcq(logs [][]int, N int) int {
for i := 0; i < len(logs); i++ {
for j := i + 1; j < len(logs); j++ {
if logs[j][0] < logs[i][0] {
logs[i], logs[j] = logs[j], logs[i]
}
}
}
arr := [][]int{}
for i := 0; i < len(logs); i++ {
v1, v2 := logs[i][1], logs[i][2]
if len(arr) == 0 {
arr = append(arr, []int{v1, v2})
} else {
has := false
for j := 0; j < len(arr); j++ {
if inArray(v1, arr[j]) || inArray(v2, arr[j]) {
has = true
if inArray(v1, arr[j]) && !inArray(v2, arr[j]) {
arr[j] = append(arr[j], v2)
} else if inArray(v2, arr[j]) && !inArray(v1, arr[j]) {
arr[j] = append(arr[j], v1)
}
break
}
}
if !has {
arr = append(arr, []int{v1, v2})
}
}
for j := 0; j < len(arr); j++ {
has, n := false, -1
for k := j + 1; k < len(arr); k++ {
if array_intersect(arr[k], arr[j]) {
for m := 0; m < len(arr[k]); m++ {
if !inArray(arr[k][m], arr[j]) {
arr[j] = append(arr[j], arr[k][m])
}
}
n = k
has = true
break
}
}
if has {
arr = append(arr[:n], arr[n+1:]...)
break
}
}
if len(arr[0]) >= N {
return logs[i][0]
}
}
return -1
}
func array_intersect(a []int, b []int) bool {
for _, v := range a {
if inArray(v, b) {
return true
}
}
return false
}
func inArray(needle int, stack []int) bool {
for _, v := range stack {
if v == needle {
return true
}
}
return false
}
|
/**
* Updates the files cache with files and returns ones that are already to
* update the testcase with.
*/
private List<FileInfo> updateCache(List<FileInfo> newFiles) {
List<FileInfo> replace = Lists.newArrayList();
for (FileInfo file : newFiles) {
FileInfo oldFile = files.getFile(file.getDisplayPath());
if (oldFile == null) {
files.addFile(file);
logger.debug("adding {}", file.getDisplayPath());
} else if (oldFile.shouldReplaceWith(file)) {
logger.debug("replacing {}", oldFile.getDisplayPath());
files.addFile(file);
} else if (file.isLoaded()) {
logger.debug("updating {} (loaded)", file.getDisplayPath());
files.addFile(file);
} else if (oldFile.isLoaded() && !file.isLoaded()){
logger.debug("not replacing {}", file.getDisplayPath());
replace.add(oldFile);
} else {
logger.debug("files are equal {}", file.getDisplayPath());
}
}
return replace;
} |
Q:
Why is one often requiring space constructibility in Savitch's theorem?
When Savitch's famous theorem is stated, one often sees the requirement that $S(n)$ be space constructible (interestingly, it is omitted in Wikipedia). My simple question is: Why do we need this? I understand the requirement for $S(n)$ being in $\Omega(\log n)$, which is clear from the proof. But no proof I have seen so far explicitly uses that $S(n)$ is space constructable.
My explanation: in order to call the procedure REACH (or PATH or whatever you like to call it), the last parameter needs to be "spelled out", and in order not to leave our space bounds of S(n) for one call, we must not need more than $S(n)$ space to write it down.
A:
This is elaborated nicely in Dexter Kozen's Theory of Computation textbook, in chapter 2.
Savitch's Theorem (Theorem 1 in his paper) says: if $S(n) \ge \log n$, then $\text{NSPACE}(S(n)) \subseteq \text{DSPACE}(S(n)^2)$. Space-constructibility often seems to be assumed in a proof, but this requirement can be removed by restarting the search with a fixed space bound that is allowed to increase with each attempt.
The confusion perhaps arises because the original Savitch paper is largely about investigating whether $\text{NSPACE}(S(n)) \not\subseteq \text{DSPACE}(S(n))$. It therefore spends a lot of effort on space-constructible functions, due to the following observation from the paper:
It is natural to ask if there is any storage function whose deterministic and nondeterministic complexity classes are equal. The answer was given by Manuel Blum and is "yes". Blum showed that there are arbitrarily large storage functions L(n) such that a set is accepted within deterministic storage L(n) if, and only if, it is accepted
within nondeterministic storage L(n). These functions L(n) are not, however, "well-behaved" and Theorem 3 does not apply to them.
(Here "well-behaved" refers to the space-constructible functions, called measurable by Savitch.)
A:
I believe your explanation is correct. The st-REACH subroutine gets $(s,t,\ell)$ as an input, and finds whether or not $t$ is reachable from $s$ by $\ell$ steps.
$s$ and $t$ will be the initial and final configurations, and $\ell=2^{O(s(n))}$, the upper bound on the number of different configurations.
In order to set $\ell$ one needs to be able to compute $s(n)$ (or rather, $2^{O(s(n))}$). If this process takes more than $O(s^2(n))$ space, then the entire machine will have space more than the allowed. It is possible that even $O(s^2(n))$ is too much because of the recursive call to st-REACH (is there any other possible reason?), but I didn't check that. |
<reponame>KarlaSalamun/ECF<filename>ECF/tree/Sub.h
#ifndef Sub_h
#define Sub_h
#include "Primitive.h"
namespace Tree {
namespace Primitives {
/**
* \ingroup tree genotypes primitives
* \brief Sub function primitive (Tree genotype)
*/
template <class T>
class SubT : public Primitive
{
public:
SubT(void);
void execute(void* result, Tree& tree);
~SubT(void);
};
typedef SubT<double> Sub;
template <class T>
SubT<T>::SubT(void)
{
nArguments_ = 2;
name_ = "-";
complementName_ = "+";
}
template <class T>
SubT<T>::~SubT(void)
{
}
template <class T>
void SubT<T>::execute(void* result, Tree& tree)
{
T prvi, drugi;
T& res = *(T*)result;
getNextArgument(&prvi, tree);
getNextArgument(&drugi, tree);
res = prvi - drugi;
}
}
}
#endif
|
<filename>version-bump.py
#! /usr/bin/env python
from __future__ import print_function
import os, re, subprocess, sys
def die(s):
print(s)
sys.exit()
version_map = {
'major': lambda a, b, c=0: [a+1, 0, 0],
'minor': lambda a, b, c=0: [a, b+1, 0],
'patch': lambda a, b, c=0: [a, b, c+1],
}
if len(sys.argv) < 3:
die('Usage: version-bump.py FILE [major/minor/patch]')
path = sys.argv[1]
if sys.argv[2] not in version_map:
die('Argument 2 must be one of: ' + ', '.join(list(version_map.keys())))
short_filename = os.path.splitext(path)[0]
if not os.path.isfile(path):
die('Not found: ' + path)
# Avoid making changes in a dirty tree
if len(subprocess.check_output(["git", "status", "--porcelain", "--", path])):
die("File '%s' is dirty - commit or stash changes first" % path)
with open(path, 'r') as f:
contents = f.read()
try:
cur_version = [int(i) for i in re.search(r"VERSION = '([^']+)'", contents).group(1).split('.')]
except Exception:
die('Invalid version number in ' + path)
new_version = '.'.join([str(i) for i in version_map[sys.argv[2]](*cur_version)])
contents = re.sub(r"VERSION = '[^']+'", "VERSION = '%s'" % new_version, contents)
with open(path, 'w') as f:
f.write(contents)
subprocess.call(["git", "add", path])
subprocess.call(["git", "commit", "-m", "Bump %s to %s" % (short_filename, new_version)])
|
Call or visit to see our selection of products for all your pick up truck needs.
Alum-A-Lite Truck Country is located at 4309 Page Ave, Michigan Center, MI. This business specializes in Truck Parts. |
Dynamic Power Splitting for SWIPT With Nonlinear Energy Harvesting in Ergodic Fading Channel Simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) is very promising for various applications with the Internet of Things (IoT). In this article, we study dynamic power splitting for the SWIPT in an ergodic fading channel. Considering nonlinearity of practical energy harvesting (EH) circuits, we adopt the realistic nonlinear EH model rather than the idealistic linear EH model. To characterize the optimal rateenergy (RE) tradeoff, we consider the problem of maximizing the RE region, which is nonconvex. We solve this challenging problem for two different cases of the channel state information (CSI): 1) when the CSI is known only at the receiver (the CSIR case) and 2) when the CSI is known at both the transmitter and the receiver (the CSI case). For these two cases, we develop the corresponding optimal dynamic power-splitting schemes. To address the complexity issue, we also propose the suboptimal schemes with low complexities. Comparing the proposed schemes to the existing schemes, we provide various useful insights into the dynamic power splitting with nonlinear EH. Furthermore, we extend the analysis to the scenarios of the partial CSI at the transmitter and the harvested energy maximization. The numerical results demonstrate that the proposed schemes significantly outperform the existing schemes and the proposed suboptimal scheme works very close to the optimal scheme at a much lower complexity. |
Brenda Philips was a dental technician from Co Down. She was watching Rugby with her son Connor – a rugby player, when she witnessed John Afoa (former Ulster player) get tackled and his ear burst open.
This is something that has happened to Leslie Smith in the UFC Octagon.
But this prompted Brenda to get thinking and find a permanent solution. She told belfast live:
“Cauliflower ears aren’t that nice to look at it. But it isn’t just about aesthetics, they can be very painful and can also cause ear damage. People who play contact sports like rugby and wrestling protect their teeth, so why not protect their ears?”
It’s been 4 years since Brenda first thought of the idea:
I said, ‘In this day and age, why have we not got some protection for our ears?’ Those horrible cauliflower ears – who wants to have those after playing? It’s still painful. If you get enough damage on the ear it can cause the canal to swell over so it can affect your hearing. It can be expensive to fix.”
I said, ‘I’m going to make something’. I took an impression of Connor’s ear and made an ear shield. Now his ears are protected. The checks have been done and as far as I am aware there is nothing else like this in the world. It is patent pending.
The mother-of-two, whose son Connor (23) and hockey player daughter Naomi (25) also wear the mouthguards she manufactures, said she came up with the idea four years ago while watching the sport on television.
It is early days but there is a lot of interest in it. I got the idea through the rugby but it seems to be really hitting the wrestling ones because they have to wear big cuffs to protect their ears. These are compact. You can hear with them and you have full view with them. I believe this is the way forward for all contact sports. I mean, who wants to have cauliflower ears?”
The invention is already in use by rugby players, judo professionals and wrestlers.
She is now hoping to roll it out to all contact sports internationally.
Do you wear an earguard? Would you wear it if it were more similar to the mouthguard?
The Lambeg Dental Laboratory boasts that this ear shield is
“At Erne Wrestling Club we have found the ear shields to be an important tool in helping to prevent injury to the ears. As a coach and a wrestler I would suggest to all participants to use the Caulear Protection Ear Shields.” Bruce Irwin Erne Wrestling Club |
package daggerok.ws.impl;
import daggerok.DaggerokRequest;
import daggerok.ws.AnswerRepository;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
@Component
public class AnswerRepositoryImpl implements AnswerRepository {
@Override
public String getAnswer(DaggerokRequest question) {
return "hi ws!";
}
}
|
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Barack Obama faulted his party's campaign strategy in an interview airing Monday, arguing Democrats suffered stinging electoral losses in last month's vote because they failed to campaign in hard-hit rural areas.
Taking partial blame -- and withholding any direct criticism of Hillary Clinton -- Obama said candidates in the future should ignore at their own peril the places Democrats haven't traditionally performed well.
"You've got a situation where they're not only entire states but also big chunks of states where, if we're not showing up, if we're not in there making an argument, then we're going to lose," Obama told NPR. "And we can lose badly, and that's what happened in this election."
In the aftermath of November's election, some Democrats have accused Clinton of maintaining a relaxed campaign schedule, bypassing states like Wisconsin and Iowa where Obama won in 2012. Her wins were principally in urban areas and on the coasts, leaving the rust belt and the heartland mostly red.
Obama said Democrats hadn't made enough of an attempt to sway voters outside the nation's population centers. Persistent losses in statewide and local races only illustrate the party's structural conundrum, he said.
"There are clearly failures on our part to give people in rural areas or in exurban areas a sense day-to-day that we're fighting for them or connected to them," he told NPR's Steve Inskeep. "Part of the reason it's important to show up...is because it then builds trust and it gives you a better sense of how should you talk about issues in a way that feel salient and feel meaningful to people."
Obama campaigned exhaustively for Clinton in states like North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, travel that officials said was dictated by Clinton headquarters and not the White House. In the final stretch, Obama argued for making a stop in Iowa, a state where he campaigned actively during his own bids for office. But Clinton's team nixed the idea, dispatching him instead to battlegrounds they felt were more in play.
In the NPR interview, Obama said Democrats had "ceded too much territory" and took some blame for ignoring political strategy during his early days in office.
"More work would have needed to be done to just build up that structure," he said. "One of the big suggestions that I have for Democrats as I leave, and something that I have some ideas about is, how do we do more of that ground-up building?"
Obama said he would work with the party once he leaves office to develop those changes, offering advice and scouting talented young politicians to champion and promote.
In interviews and press conferences, Obama has now offered extensive thoughts on how Clinton lost in last month's election, suggesting a mix of electoral miscalculation, Russian meddling, and media mistreatment.
Trump knew that Russia was seeking to harm his opponent, Obama argued, though stopped short of accusing the Republican of colluding with Moscow.
"That the CIA is now assessing, which was it was done purposefully to tilt the election in the direction of a particular candidate, shouldn't be a surprise to anybody. And in fact isn't a surprise to anybody," Obama said. Later he clarified that US intelligence officials are still working to determine a definitive motive for Russian hackers.
He said in the interview that Clinton's policy and diplomatic experience was lost in a sensationalistic political environment -- fueled, he said, by information gleaned from Russian hacks.
"In that scrum, in that swirl, you know, Donald Trump and his celebrity and his ability to garner attention and obviously tap into a lot of the anxieties and fears that some voters have, I think, definitely made a difference," he said.
"If we don't, you know, do some hard reflection -- all of us -- on how that happens, then we're like a body that is already weakened and then becomes more vulnerable to foreign viruses, becomes more vulnerable to manipulation and demagoguery and that's something that I'm also going to be thinking a lot about in my afterlife, my post-presidency," he went on. |
Monozygotic twins presenting with isolated sagittal and bicoronal synostosis, respectively Hanne D. Hove, Morten Dun, Per Larsen and Sven Kreiborg, Department of Clinical Genetics, The RAREDIS Database, Centre for Rare Diseases, Department of Clinical Genetics, Copenhagen University Hospital Rigshospitalet, 3D Craniofacial Image Research Laboratory (School of Dentistry, University of Copenhagen; Copenhagen University Hospital Rigshospitalet; and DTU Compute, Technical University of Denmark) and Department of Pediatric Dentistry and Clinical Genetics, School of Dentistry, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark |
<filename>NLP/roberta/roberta/models/roberta_utils.py
import oneflow as flow
import oneflow.nn as nn
import inspect
from typing import Callable, List, Set, Tuple
# for cumsum
import numpy as np
def init_weights(module):
if isinstance(module, nn.Linear):
module.weight.data.normal_(mean=0.0, std=0.02)
if module.bias is not None:
module.bias.data.fill_(0.0)
elif isinstance(module, nn.Embedding):
module.weight.data.normal_(mean=0.0, std=0.02)
if module.padding_idx is not None:
module.weight.data[module.padding_idx].fill_(0.01)
elif isinstance(module, nn.LayerNorm):
module.bias.data.fill_(0.0)
module.weight.data.fill_(1.0)
def create_position_ids_from_input_ids(input_ids, padding_idx, past_key_values_length=0):
# The series of casts and type-conversions here are carefully balanced to both work with ONNX export and XLA.
mask = input_ids.ne(padding_idx).to(flow.int32)
# oneflow does not support cumsum now.
mask_cumsum = flow.tensor(np.cumsum(mask.numpy(), axis=1)).to(
mask.device, mask.dtype)
incremental_indices = (mask_cumsum + past_key_values_length) * mask
return incremental_indices.to(flow.int64) + padding_idx
def find_pruneable_heads_and_indices(
heads: List[int], n_heads: int, head_size: int, already_pruned_heads: Set[int]
) -> Tuple[Set[int], flow.Tensor]:
mask = flow.ones(n_heads, head_size)
# Convert to set and remove already pruned heads
heads = set(heads) - already_pruned_heads
for head in heads:
# Compute how many pruned heads are before the head and move the index accordingly
head = head - sum(1 if h < head else 0 for h in already_pruned_heads)
mask[head] = 0
mask = mask.view(-1).contiguous().eq(1)
index: flow.Tensor = flow.arange(len(mask), dtype=flow.int64)[mask]
return heads, index
def prune_linear_layer(layer: nn.Linear, index: flow.Tensor, dim: int = 0) -> nn.Linear:
index = index.to(layer.weight.device)
W = layer.weight.index_select(dim, index).clone().detach()
if layer.bias is not None:
if dim == 1:
b = layer.bias.clone().detach()
else:
b = layer.bias[index].clone().detach()
new_size = list(layer.weight.size())
new_size[dim] = len(index)
new_layer = nn.Linear(
new_size[1], new_size[0], bias=layer.bias is not None).to(layer.weight.device)
new_layer.weight.requires_grad = False
new_layer.weight.copy_(W.contiguous())
new_layer.weight.requires_grad = True
if layer.bias is not None:
new_layer.bias.requires_grad = False
new_layer.bias.copy_(b.contiguous())
new_layer.bias.requires_grad = True
return new_layer
def apply_chunking_to_forward(
forward_fn: Callable[..., flow.Tensor], chunk_size: int, chunk_dim: int, *input_tensors
) -> flow.Tensor:
assert len(
input_tensors) > 0, f"{input_tensors} has to be a tuple/list of tensors"
tensor_shape = input_tensors[0].shape[chunk_dim]
assert all(
input_tensor.shape[chunk_dim] == tensor_shape for input_tensor in input_tensors
), "All input tenors have to be of the same shape"
# inspect.signature exist since python 3.5 and is a python method -> no problem with backward compatibility
num_args_in_forward_chunk_fn = len(
inspect.signature(forward_fn).parameters)
if num_args_in_forward_chunk_fn != len(input_tensors):
raise ValueError(
f"forward_chunk_fn expects {num_args_in_forward_chunk_fn} arguments, but only {len(input_tensors)} input "
"tensors are given"
)
if chunk_size > 0:
if input_tensors[0].shape[chunk_dim] % chunk_size != 0:
raise ValueError(
f"The dimension to be chunked {input_tensors[0].shape[chunk_dim]} has to be a multiple of the chunk "
f"size {chunk_size}"
)
num_chunks = input_tensors[0].shape[chunk_dim] // chunk_size
# chunk input tensor into tuples
input_tensors_chunks = tuple(input_tensor.chunk(
num_chunks, dim=chunk_dim) for input_tensor in input_tensors)
# apply forward fn to every tuple
output_chunks = tuple(forward_fn(*input_tensors_chunk)
for input_tensors_chunk in zip(*input_tensors_chunks))
# concatenate output at same dimension
return flow.cat(output_chunks, dim=chunk_dim)
return forward_fn(*input_tensors)
def position_scores(layer, embed):
# replace flow.einsum when
# position_embedding_type == "relative_key" or "relative_key_query"
assert layer.dim() == 4
assert embed.dim() == 3
assert layer.shape[3] == embed.shape[2]
assert layer.shape[2] == embed.shape[0]
b, h, l, d = layer.shape
l, r, d = embed.shape
layer = layer.unsqueeze(-2)
embed = embed.transpose(-2, -
1).unsqueeze(0).unsqueeze(0).expand(b, h, l, d, r)
return flow.matmul(layer, embed).squeeze(-2)
|
#ifndef LEPTONVARIATION_TYPES_H
#define LEPTONVARIATION_TYPES_H
#include <QQmlComponent>
#include <QMetaType>
#include "LEPTON_ErrorCodes.h"
#include "LEPTON_AGC.h"
#include "LEPTON_VID.h"
#define QML_ENUM(name, storageType, ...)\
enum class name : storageType {\
__VA_ARGS__\
};\
class QE_##name {\
Q_GADGET\
Q_ENUMS(E)\
public:\
enum class E : storageType {\
__VA_ARGS__\
};\
};
namespace LEP {
QML_ENUM(PCOLOR_LUT_E, char, \
LEP_VID_WHEEL6_LUT, \
LEP_VID_FUSION_LUT, \
LEP_VID_RAINBOW_LUT, \
LEP_VID_GLOBOW_LUT, \
LEP_VID_SEPIA_LUT, \
LEP_VID_COLOR_LUT, \
LEP_VID_ICE_FIRE_LUT, \
LEP_VID_RAIN_LUT, \
LEP_VID_USER_LUT \
)
QML_ENUM(POLARITY_E, char, \
LEP_VID_WHITE_HOT, \
LEP_VID_BLACK_HOT, \
)
QML_ENUM(VID_SBNUC_ENABLE_E, char, \
LEP_VID_SBNUC_DISABLE, \
LEP_VID_SBNUC_ENABLE, \
)
QML_ENUM(AGC_ENABLE_E, char, \
LEP_AGC_DISABLE, \
LEP_AGC_ENABLE, \
)
QML_ENUM(AGC_POLICY_E, char, \
LEP_AGC_LINEAR, \
LEP_AGC_HEQ, \
)
QML_ENUM(AGC_HEQ_SCALE_FACTOR_E, char, \
LEP_AGC_SCALE_TO_8_BITS,
LEP_AGC_SCALE_TO_14_BITS, \
)
}
void registerLeptonVariationQmlTypes();
#endif // LEPTONVARIATION_TYPES_H
|
<gh_stars>1000+
package com.tencent.angel.graph.psf.hyperanf;
import com.clearspring.analytics.stream.cardinality.HyperLogLogPlus;
import com.tencent.angel.ps.storage.vector.element.IElement;
import com.tencent.angel.utils.StringUtils;
import io.netty.buffer.ByteBuf;
import org.apache.commons.logging.Log;
import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;
import java.io.DataInputStream;
import java.io.DataOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
public class HLLPlusElement implements IElement {
private static final Log LOG = LogFactory.getLog(UpdateHyperLogLogPartParam.class);
private HyperLogLogPlus counter;
public HLLPlusElement(HyperLogLogPlus counter) {
this.counter = counter;
}
public HLLPlusElement() { this(null); }
public HyperLogLogPlus getCounter() { return counter; }
public void setCounter(HyperLogLogPlus counter) { this.counter = counter; }
@Override
public HLLPlusElement deepClone() {
return new HLLPlusElement(counter);
}
@Override
public void serialize(ByteBuf output) {
try {
byte[] bytes = counter.getBytes();
output.writeInt(bytes.length);
output.writeBytes(bytes);
} catch (IOException e) {
LOG.error("Serialize failed, details = " + StringUtils.stringifyException(e));
throw new RuntimeException(e);
}
}
@Override
public void deserialize(ByteBuf input) {
int len = input.readInt();
byte[] bytes = new byte[len];
input.readBytes(bytes);
try {
counter = HyperLogLogPlus.Builder.build(bytes);
} catch (IOException e) {
LOG.error("ReadCounter failed, details = " + StringUtils.stringifyException(e));
throw new RuntimeException(e);
}
}
@Override
public int bufferLen() {
return (4 + counter.sizeof());
}
@Override
public void serialize(DataOutputStream output) throws IOException {
byte[] bytes = counter.getBytes();
output.writeInt(bytes.length);
output.writeBytes(new String(bytes));
}
@Override
public void deserialize(DataInputStream input) throws IOException {
int len = input.readInt();
byte[] bytes = new byte[len];
input.readFully(bytes);
counter = HyperLogLogPlus.Builder.build(bytes);
}
@Override
public int dataLen() {
return bufferLen();
}
}
|
use anyhow::bail;
use settings_utils::apps::{query_service::QueryServiceSettings, LogSettings, MonitoringSettings};
use crate::config_generator::{
context::{Context, FromContext, Repo},
defaults::DEFAULT_QUERY_SERVICE_PORT,
};
pub const QUERY_SERVICE_NAMESPACE: &str = "query_service";
impl FromContext for QueryServiceSettings {
fn from_context(context: &Context) -> anyhow::Result<Self> {
if let Repo::Postgres = context.repo {
Ok(Self {
postgres: context.postgres.clone().into(),
input_port: DEFAULT_QUERY_SERVICE_PORT,
monitoring: MonitoringSettings {
metrics_port: 0,
status_port: 0,
otel_service_name: QUERY_SERVICE_NAMESPACE.to_string(),
},
log: LogSettings {
rust_log: format!("info,{}=debug", QUERY_SERVICE_NAMESPACE),
},
})
} else {
bail!("unsupported repository kind")
}
}
}
|
<gh_stars>1-10
package spider
import (
"encoding/json"
"fmt"
"io/ioutil"
"log"
"math"
"net/http"
"net/url"
"strconv"
"strings"
"time"
)
var spotifyClient = &http.Client{
Timeout: 60 * time.Second,
}
var spotifyToken string
func initializeToken(spotifyClientID, spotifySecret string) error {
req, err := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://accounts.spotify.com/api/token", strings.NewReader(getSpotifyTokenRequestBody(spotifyClientID, spotifySecret)))
if err != nil {
return fmt.Errorf("Could not build Spotify token request: %s", err)
}
req.Header.Add("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded")
res, err := spotifyClient.Do(req)
if err != nil {
return fmt.Errorf("Could not make Spotify token request: %s", err)
}
defer res.Body.Close()
if res.StatusCode != http.StatusOK {
return fmt.Errorf("Spotify token request responded with %d", res.StatusCode)
}
body, err := ioutil.ReadAll(res.Body)
if err != nil {
return fmt.Errorf("Could not read Spotify token response: %s", err)
}
var parsedBody struct {
AccessToken string `json:"access_token"`
}
err = json.Unmarshal(body, &parsedBody)
if err != nil {
return fmt.Errorf("Could not parse Spotify token response: %s", err)
}
spotifyToken = parsedBody.AccessToken
return nil
}
func getSpotifyTokenRequestBody(spotifyClientID, spotifySecret string) string {
body := url.Values{}
body.Set("client_id", spotifyClientID)
body.Set("client_secret", spotifySecret)
body.Set("grant_type", "client_credentials")
return body.Encode()
}
func getTracksFromPlaylist(playlistID string) (map[string]*TrackEnvelope, error) {
nextURL := fmt.Sprintf("https://api.spotify.com/v1/playlists/%s/tracks?limit=100&fields=next,items(track(available_markets,id,name,popularity,album(id,images,name,artists),artists))", playlistID)
tracks := make(map[string]*TrackEnvelope)
for nextURL != "" {
log.Printf("Handling %s...", nextURL)
req, err := http.NewRequest("GET", nextURL, nil)
if err != nil {
return tracks, fmt.Errorf("Could not build Spotify playlist request: %s", err)
}
req.Header.Add("Authorization", fmt.Sprintf("Bearer %s", spotifyToken))
res, err := spotifyClient.Do(req)
if err != nil {
return tracks, fmt.Errorf("Could not make Spotify playlist request: %s", err)
}
defer res.Body.Close()
if res.StatusCode == http.StatusTooManyRequests {
log.Println("Spotify asked us too back off")
retryAfterSeconds, err := strconv.Atoi(res.Header.Get("Retry-After"))
if err != nil {
return nil, fmt.Errorf("Could not parse retry after header: %s", err)
}
log.Printf("Waiting for %d seconds...", retryAfterSeconds)
time.Sleep(time.Duration(retryAfterSeconds) * time.Second)
return getTrackFeatures(tracks)
}
if res.StatusCode != http.StatusOK {
return tracks, fmt.Errorf("Spotify playlist request responded with %d", res.StatusCode)
}
body, err := ioutil.ReadAll(res.Body)
if err != nil {
return tracks, fmt.Errorf("Could not read Spotify playlist response: %s", err)
}
var parsedBody struct {
Next string
Items []struct {
Track track `json:"track"`
} `json:"items"`
}
err = json.Unmarshal(body, &parsedBody)
if err != nil {
return tracks, fmt.Errorf("Could not parse Spotify playlist response: %s", err)
}
for _, item := range parsedBody.Items {
track := item.Track
id := track.ID
track.ID = ""
track.Album.Images = findBestImage(track.Album.Images)
tracks[id] = &TrackEnvelope{Track: track}
}
nextURL = parsedBody.Next
}
return tracks, nil
}
func getTrackFeaturesInBatches(allTracks map[string]*TrackEnvelope) (map[string]*TrackEnvelope, error) {
var trackIDs []string
for id := range allTracks {
trackIDs = append(trackIDs, id)
}
newTracks := make(map[string]*TrackEnvelope)
for i := 0; i < len(trackIDs); i += 100 {
end := i + 100
if len(trackIDs) < end {
end = len(trackIDs)
}
ids := trackIDs[i:end]
log.Printf("Getting feature batch %d of %d, ids %s to %s...", (i/100)+1, int64(math.Ceil(float64(len(trackIDs))/100.0)), ids[0], ids[len(ids)-1])
batchOfTracks := make(map[string]*TrackEnvelope)
for _, id := range ids {
batchOfTracks[id] = allTracks[id]
}
var err error
tracks, err := getTrackFeatures(batchOfTracks)
if err != nil {
return nil, fmt.Errorf("Could not get batch of track features: %s", err)
}
for id, track := range tracks {
newTracks[id] = track
}
}
return newTracks, nil
}
func getTrackFeatures(tracks map[string]*TrackEnvelope) (map[string]*TrackEnvelope, error) {
var ids []string
for id := range tracks {
ids = append(ids, id)
}
idsParam := strings.Join(ids, ",")
req, err := http.NewRequest("GET", fmt.Sprintf("https://api.spotify.com/v1/audio-features?ids=%s", idsParam), nil)
if err != nil {
return nil, fmt.Errorf("Could not build Spotify track features request: %s", err)
}
req.Header.Add("Authorization", fmt.Sprintf("Bearer %s", spotifyToken))
res, err := spotifyClient.Do(req)
if err != nil {
return nil, fmt.Errorf("Could not make Spotify track features request: %s", err)
}
defer res.Body.Close()
if res.StatusCode == http.StatusTooManyRequests {
log.Println("Spotify asked us too back off")
retryAfterSeconds, err := strconv.Atoi(res.Header.Get("Retry-After"))
if err != nil {
return nil, fmt.Errorf("Could not parse retry after header: %s", err)
}
log.Printf("Waiting for %d seconds...", retryAfterSeconds)
time.Sleep(time.Duration(retryAfterSeconds) * time.Second)
return getTrackFeatures(tracks)
}
if res.StatusCode != http.StatusOK {
return nil, fmt.Errorf("Spotify track features request responded with %d", res.StatusCode)
}
body, err := ioutil.ReadAll(res.Body)
if err != nil {
return nil, fmt.Errorf("Could not read Spotify track features response: %s", err)
}
var parsedBody struct {
AudioFeatures []features `json:"audio_features"`
}
err = json.Unmarshal(body, &parsedBody)
if err != nil {
return nil, fmt.Errorf("Could not parse Spotify track features response: %s", err)
}
featuresByID := make(map[string]features)
for _, audioFeatures := range parsedBody.AudioFeatures {
id := audioFeatures.ID
audioFeatures.ID = ""
featuresByID[id] = audioFeatures
}
for id, track := range tracks {
if track == nil {
delete(tracks, id)
continue
}
if trackFeatures, ok := featuresByID[id]; ok {
track.Features = trackFeatures
} else {
delete(tracks, id)
}
}
return tracks, nil
}
func findBestImage(images []image) []image {
// from the docs: "The cover art for the album in various sizes, widest first."
// https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/reference/object-model/#album-object-simplified
if len(images) == 0 {
return images
}
bestImage := images[0]
bestImage.Width = 0
bestImage.Height = 0
return []image{bestImage}
}
|
/**
* TraceContext that allows to set logging tags and enforce logging.
*
* <p>The logging tags are attached to all log entries that are triggered while the trace context is
* open. If force logging is enabled all logs that are triggered while the trace context is open are
* written to the log file regardless of the configured log level.
*
* <pre>
* try (TraceContext traceContext = TraceContext.open()
* .addTag("tag-name", "tag-value")
* .forceLogging()) {
* // This gets logged as: A log [CONTEXT forced=true tag-name="tag-value" ]
* // Since force logging is enabled this gets logged independently of the configured log
* // level.
* logger.atFinest().log("A log");
*
* // do stuff
* }
* </pre>
*
* <p>The logging tags and the force logging flag are stored in the {@link LoggingContext}. {@link
* LoggingContextAwareExecutorService}, {@link LoggingContextAwareScheduledExecutorService} and the
* executor in {@link com.google.gerrit.server.git.WorkQueue} ensure that the logging context is
* automatically copied to background threads.
*
* <p>On close of the trace context newly set tags are unset. Force logging is disabled on close if
* it got enabled while the trace context was open.
*
* <p>Trace contexts can be nested:
*
* <pre>
* // Initially there are no tags
* logger.atSevere().log("log without tag");
*
* // a tag can be set by opening a trace context
* try (TraceContext ctx = TraceContext.open().addTag("tag1", "value1")) {
* logger.atSevere().log("log with tag1=value1");
*
* // while a trace context is open further tags can be added.
* ctx.addTag("tag2", "value2")
* logger.atSevere().log("log with tag1=value1 and tag2=value2");
*
* // also by opening another trace context a another tag can be added
* try (TraceContext ctx2 = TraceContext.open().addTag("tag3", "value3")) {
* logger.atSevere().log("log with tag1=value1, tag2=value2 and tag3=value3");
*
* // it's possible to have the same tag name with multiple values
* ctx2.addTag("tag3", "value3a")
* logger.atSevere().log("log with tag1=value1, tag2=value2, tag3=value3 and tag3=value3a");
*
* // adding a tag with the same name and value as an existing tag has no effect
* try (TraceContext ctx3 = TraceContext.open().addTag("tag3", "value3a")) {
* logger.atSevere().log("log with tag1=value1, tag2=value2, tag3=value3 and tag3=value3a");
* }
*
* // closing ctx3 didn't remove tag3=value3a since it was already set before opening ctx3
* logger.atSevere().log("log with tag1=value1, tag2=value2, tag3=value3 and tag3=value3a");
* }
*
* // closing ctx2 removed tag3=value3 and tag3-value3a
* logger.atSevere().log("with tag1=value1 and tag2=value2");
* }
*
* // closing ctx1 removed tag1=value1 and tag2=value2
* logger.atSevere().log("log without tag");
* </pre>
*/
public class TraceContext implements AutoCloseable {
private static final String PLUGIN_TAG = "PLUGIN";
public static TraceContext open() {
return new TraceContext();
}
/**
* Opens a new trace context for request tracing.
*
* <ul>
* <li>sets a tag with a trace ID
* <li>enables force logging
* </ul>
*
* <p>if no trace ID is provided a new trace ID is only generated if request tracing was not
* started yet. If request tracing was already started the given {@code traceIdConsumer} is
* invoked with the existing trace ID and no new logging tag is set.
*
* <p>No-op if {@code trace} is {@code false}.
*
* @param trace whether tracing should be started
* @param traceId trace ID that should be used for tracing, if {@code null} a trace ID is
* generated
* @param traceIdConsumer consumer for the trace ID, should be used to return the generated trace
* ID to the client, not invoked if {@code trace} is {@code false}
* @return the trace context
*/
public static TraceContext newTrace(
boolean trace, @Nullable String traceId, TraceIdConsumer traceIdConsumer) {
if (!trace) {
// Create an empty trace context.
return open();
}
if (!Strings.isNullOrEmpty(traceId)) {
traceIdConsumer.accept(RequestId.Type.TRACE_ID.name(), traceId);
return open().addTag(RequestId.Type.TRACE_ID, traceId).forceLogging();
}
Optional<String> existingTraceId =
LoggingContext.getInstance()
.getTagsAsMap()
.get(RequestId.Type.TRACE_ID.name())
.stream()
.findAny();
if (existingTraceId.isPresent()) {
// request tracing was already started, no need to generate a new trace ID
traceIdConsumer.accept(RequestId.Type.TRACE_ID.name(), existingTraceId.get());
return open();
}
RequestId newTraceId = new RequestId();
traceIdConsumer.accept(RequestId.Type.TRACE_ID.name(), newTraceId.toString());
return open().addTag(RequestId.Type.TRACE_ID, newTraceId).forceLogging();
}
@FunctionalInterface
public interface TraceIdConsumer {
void accept(String tagName, String traceId);
}
/**
* Opens a new timer that logs the time for an operation if request tracing is enabled.
*
* <p>If request tracing is not enabled this is a no-op.
*
* @param message the message
* @return the trace timer
*/
public static TraceTimer newTimer(String message) {
return new TraceTimer(message);
}
/**
* Opens a new timer that logs the time for an operation if request tracing is enabled.
*
* <p>If request tracing is not enabled this is a no-op.
*
* @param format the message format string
* @param arg argument for the message
* @return the trace timer
*/
public static TraceTimer newTimer(String format, Object arg) {
return new TraceTimer(format, arg);
}
/**
* Opens a new timer that logs the time for an operation if request tracing is enabled.
*
* <p>If request tracing is not enabled this is a no-op.
*
* @param format the message format string
* @param arg1 first argument for the message
* @param arg2 second argument for the message
* @return the trace timer
*/
public static TraceTimer newTimer(String format, Object arg1, Object arg2) {
return new TraceTimer(format, arg1, arg2);
}
/**
* Opens a new timer that logs the time for an operation if request tracing is enabled.
*
* <p>If request tracing is not enabled this is a no-op.
*
* @param format the message format string
* @param arg1 first argument for the message
* @param arg2 second argument for the message
* @param arg3 third argument for the message
* @return the trace timer
*/
public static TraceTimer newTimer(String format, Object arg1, Object arg2, Object arg3) {
return new TraceTimer(format, arg1, arg2, arg3);
}
public static class TraceTimer implements AutoCloseable {
private static final FluentLogger logger = FluentLogger.forEnclosingClass();
private final Consumer<Long> logFn;
private final Stopwatch stopwatch;
private TraceTimer(String message) {
this(elapsedMs -> logger.atFine().log(message + " (%d ms)", elapsedMs));
}
private TraceTimer(String format, @Nullable Object arg) {
this(elapsedMs -> logger.atFine().log(format + " (%d ms)", arg, elapsedMs));
}
private TraceTimer(String format, @Nullable Object arg1, @Nullable Object arg2) {
this(elapsedMs -> logger.atFine().log(format + " (%d ms)", arg1, arg2, elapsedMs));
}
private TraceTimer(
String format, @Nullable Object arg1, @Nullable Object arg2, @Nullable Object arg3) {
this(elapsedMs -> logger.atFine().log(format + " (%d ms)", arg1, arg2, arg3, elapsedMs));
}
private TraceTimer(Consumer<Long> logFn) {
this.logFn = logFn;
this.stopwatch = Stopwatch.createStarted();
}
@Override
public void close() {
stopwatch.stop();
logFn.accept(stopwatch.elapsed(TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS));
}
}
// Table<TAG_NAME, TAG_VALUE, REMOVE_ON_CLOSE>
private final Table<String, String, Boolean> tags = HashBasedTable.create();
private boolean stopForceLoggingOnClose;
private TraceContext() {}
public TraceContext addTag(RequestId.Type requestId, Object tagValue) {
return addTag(requireNonNull(requestId, "request ID is required").name(), tagValue);
}
public TraceContext addTag(String tagName, Object tagValue) {
String name = requireNonNull(tagName, "tag name is required");
String value = requireNonNull(tagValue, "tag value is required").toString();
tags.put(name, value, LoggingContext.getInstance().addTag(name, value));
return this;
}
public TraceContext addPluginTag(String pluginName) {
return addTag(PLUGIN_TAG, pluginName);
}
public TraceContext forceLogging() {
if (stopForceLoggingOnClose) {
return this;
}
stopForceLoggingOnClose = !LoggingContext.getInstance().forceLogging(true);
return this;
}
@Override
public void close() {
for (Table.Cell<String, String, Boolean> cell : tags.cellSet()) {
if (cell.getValue()) {
LoggingContext.getInstance().removeTag(cell.getRowKey(), cell.getColumnKey());
}
}
if (stopForceLoggingOnClose) {
LoggingContext.getInstance().forceLogging(false);
}
}
} |
import './_init'
import { Store, StoreOptions } from 'vuex'
import { mutation, getModule, getter, action, createStore, state } from '../src'
interface BaseModuleState {
a: string
}
const INIT_A = 'initial a'
const BASE_MSG = 'set by base class'
class BaseModule implements BaseModuleState {
@state
a = INIT_A
@mutation
setA(a: string) {
this.a = a
}
@action()
baseFoo() {
this.setA(BASE_MSG)
return Promise.resolve()
}
@action()
replaceFoo() {
this.setA(BASE_MSG)
return Promise.resolve()
}
}
interface SubModuleState extends BaseModuleState {
b: string
}
const INIT_B = 'initial b'
const SUPER_B = 'msg by super class'
class SubModule extends BaseModule implements SubModuleState {
@state
b = INIT_B
@mutation
setB(b: string) {
this.b = b
}
@getter
foo() {
return 'foo'
}
@action()
afoo() {
return new Promise(resolve => {
setTimeout(() => {
this.setA(this.foo())
this.setB(this.foo())
resolve()
}, 300)
})
}
@action()
async baseFoo() {
await super.baseFoo()
this.setB(SUPER_B)
}
@action()
replaceFoo() {
this.setA(SUPER_B)
return Promise.resolve()
}
}
const anotherA = (msg: string) => msg + ' | ' + msg
class AnotherSubModule extends BaseModule {
@mutation
setA(message: string) {
this.a = anotherA(message)
}
}
interface RootState {
base: BaseModuleState
sub: SubModuleState
another: BaseModuleState
}
class Root {
strict = true
base!: BaseModule
sub!: SubModule
another!: BaseModuleState
modules = {
base: new BaseModule(),
sub: new SubModule(),
another: new AnotherSubModule(),
}
}
const A_2 = 'set a value'
const B_2 = 'set b value'
describe('test module inheritance', () => {
let store: Store<RootState>
beforeEach(() => {
store = createStore(Root)
})
test('test inherited module', () => {
expect(store.state.base.a).toBe(INIT_A)
expect(store.state.sub.a).toBe(INIT_A)
expect(store.state.sub.b).toBe(INIT_B)
store.commit('base/setA', A_2)
expect(store.state.base.a).toBe(A_2)
store.commit('sub/setA', A_2)
expect(store.state.sub.a).toBe(A_2)
store.commit('sub/setB', B_2)
expect(store.state.sub.b).toBe(B_2)
})
test('ASDFJASDJF test inherited module with getModule', () => {
const sub = getModule(SubModule, 'sub')
expect(sub.a).toBe(INIT_A)
expect(sub.b).toBe(INIT_B)
sub.setA(A_2)
expect(sub.a).toBe(A_2)
sub.setB(B_2)
expect(sub.b).toBe(B_2)
})
test('test method override w/ super call', async () => {
const sub = getModule(SubModule, 'sub')
await sub.baseFoo()
expect(store.state.sub.a).toBe(BASE_MSG)
expect(sub.a).toBe(BASE_MSG)
expect(store.state.sub.b).toBe(SUPER_B)
expect(sub.b).toBe(SUPER_B)
})
test('test method override as replace', async () => {
const sub = getModule(SubModule, 'sub')
await sub.replaceFoo()
expect(store.state.sub.a).toBe(SUPER_B)
expect(sub.a).toBe(SUPER_B)
})
test('test override mutation', () => {
const a = getModule(AnotherSubModule, 'another')
const msg = 'abc'
a.setA(msg)
expect(a.a).toBe(anotherA(msg))
expect(store.state.another.a).toBe(anotherA(msg))
})
test('test using super class', () => {
const mod = getModule(BaseModule, 'sub')
const val = 'a test value'
mod.setA(val)
const sub = getModule(SubModule, 'sub')
expect(sub.a).toBe(val)
expect(store.state.sub.a).toBe(val)
})
test('test using Object', () => {
const obj = getModule(Object, 'sub')
expect(obj instanceof SubModule).toBe(true)
})
})
|
<gh_stars>0
import * as React from 'react';
import { ReactElement } from 'react';
import { ToolbarProps } from '@material-ui/core';
import { Exporter } from 'ra-core';
import { ClassesOverride } from '../types';
declare const useStyles: (props?: any) => Record<"toolbar" | "actions", string>;
export interface ListToolbarProps extends Omit<ToolbarProps, 'classes' | 'onSelect'> {
actions?: ReactElement | false;
classes?: ClassesOverride<typeof useStyles>;
filters?: ReactElement;
exporter?: Exporter | false;
}
declare const _default: React.NamedExoticComponent<ListToolbarProps>;
export default _default;
|
Laser ablation, or laser evaporation deposition (LEDE) is a known technique for growing thin films on a substrate. The technique has been used to deposit high temperature superconductor materials as thin films on a variety of substrates.
An apparatus for performing laser ablation deposition, representative of the prior art, is seen in FIG. 1. The apparatus includes a vacuum chamber 1, a thermomolecular pump 2 which imparts a vacuum in the chamber 1, and a gas manifold. A pulsed laser beam 3 from a KrF source (not shown) is focused by a cylindrical lens 4, through a quartz window 5, onto a target pellet 6 made of superconductor material, such as YBa.sub.2 Cu.sub.3 O.sub.7.
The beam 3 striking the pellet 6 generates a plume 7 containing the target material. The material is then deposited on a substrate 8 mounted on a heater 9. Typical of the prior art, the target pellet 6 is caused to rotate during ablation, as shown by the directional arrow.
In the pulsed laser ablation process with a smooth flat target surface, the initial plume direction is normal to the surface and nearly independent of the laser beam incident angle. For the deposition of thin films to take place properly, the film substrate must be placed so as to intercept the plume, and the optimum placement is usually found to be on the target normal.
For multipulse depositions, the laser cannot pass through the film or it will ablate it away, negating the whole effort. Consequently, the laser beam incident angle must be off normal.
In depositing high temperature superconductors such as YBCO by laser ablation, it has been found that texturing of the target surface occurs as the laser ablates away material with repeated pulses, and a typical film may need thousands of pulses. This texturing creates microscopic finger-like projections pointing back along the laser beam. These cause a steering of the ablation plume away from the target normal and toward the laser beam. The more pronounced these projections become, the more steering they produce. Both film thickness per pulse and film composition (at least for YBCO composite targets) are affected, causing severe degradation of film quality and repeatability unless steps are taken to control texturing.
It has been suggested that allowing buildup of the texturing increases the generation of large ablation particles which can degrade the film. Thus, most prior art laser ablation techniques have employed target rotation or translation as a means of reducing the effect of texturing.
A technique that I had previously proposed used a laser beam that scans up and down across the disk's diameter at 1/10 the rotation rate.
However, this technique produces a plume which moves up and down as the laser beam scans. A moving plume is troublesome for ablation processes where there is a need to keep the plume in a fixed location relative to the chamber.
Another laser/optical problem in laser ablation deposition is the need for high spatial uniformity of the laser beam incident on the target in order to get uniform film composition. This requirement is typically met with existing excimer lasers by masking off all but the center of the laser beam, thus wasting 50 to 70% of the laser pulse energy.
More sophisticated laser resonator optics can reduce the amount of masking needed, but they reduce the total energy extractable from a given laser, so that little gain in overall efficiency is achieved. The laser operating cost is probably the most significant economic factor for large scale use of the laser ablation deposition process, so efficient utilization of the laser light is imperative.
Another problem experienced by laser ablation processes is laser beam entrance window fogging or contamination by the ablation plume. This can cause a 50% loss in laser energy delivered to the target after a few thousand pulses, thus requiring that the windows be removed and cleaned after a few films have been deposited. This is clearly a production bottleneck for any large scale use of the process, but even in research use, it costs time and money to remove and clean the windows. Moreover, window cleaning can lead to contamination of the vacuum chamber with air and moisture. Also, exact process conditions which produce a given research sample cannot be guaranteed since significant fogging can occur in a single film run. |
Interacting Bioenergetic and Stoichiometric Controls on Microbial Growth Microorganisms function as open systems that exchange matter and energy with their surrounding environment. Even though mass (carbon and nutrients) and energy exchanges are tightly linked, there is a lack of integrated approaches that combine these fluxes and explore how they jointly impact microbial growth. Such links are essential to predicting how the growth rate of microorganisms varies, especially when the stoichiometry of carbon- (C) and nitrogen (N)-uptake is not balanced. Here, we present a theoretical framework to quantify the microbial growth rate for conditions of C-, N-, and energy-(co-) limitations. We use this framework to show how the C:N ratio and the degree of reduction of the organic matter (OM), which is also the electron donor, availability of electron acceptors (EAs), and the different sources of N together control the microbial growth rate under C, nutrient, and energy-limited conditions. We show that the growth rate peaks at intermediate values of the degree of reduction of OM under oxic and C-limited conditions, but not under N-limited conditions. Under oxic conditions and with N-poor OM, the growth rate is higher when the inorganic N (NInorg)-source is ammonium compared to nitrate due to the additional energetic cost involved in nitrate reduction. Under anoxic conditions, when nitrate is both EA and NInorg-source, the growth rates of denitrifiers and microbes performing the dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonia (DNRA) are determined by both OM degree of reduction and nitrate-availability. Consistent with the data, DNRA is predicted to foster growth under extreme nitrate-limitation and with a reduced OM, whereas denitrifiers are favored as nitrate becomes more available and in the presence of oxidized OM. Furthermore, the growth rate is reduced when catabolism is coupled to low energy yielding EAs (e.g., sulfate) because of the low carbon use efficiency (CUE). However, the low CUE also decreases the nutrient demand for growth, thereby reducing N-limitation. We conclude that bioenergetics provides a useful conceptual framework for explaining growth rates under different metabolisms and multiple resource-limitations. Microorganisms function as open systems that exchange matter and energy with their surrounding environment. Even though mass (carbon and nutrients) and energy exchanges are tightly linked, there is a lack of integrated approaches that combine these fluxes and explore how they jointly impact microbial growth. Such links are essential to predicting how the growth rate of microorganisms varies, especially when the stoichiometry of carbon-(C) and nitrogen (N)-uptake is not balanced. Here, we present a theoretical framework to quantify the microbial growth rate for conditions of C-, N-, and energy-(co-) limitations. We use this framework to show how the C:N ratio and the degree of reduction of the organic matter (OM), which is also the electron donor, availability of electron acceptors (EAs), and the different sources of N together control the microbial growth rate under C, nutrient, and energy-limited conditions. We show that the growth rate peaks at intermediate values of the degree of reduction of OM under oxic and C-limited conditions, but not under N-limited conditions. Under oxic conditions and with N-poor OM, the growth rate is higher when the inorganic N (N Inorg )-source is ammonium compared to nitrate due to the additional energetic cost involved in nitrate reduction. Under anoxic conditions, when nitrate is both EA and N Inorg -source, the growth rates of denitrifiers and microbes performing the dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonia (DNRA) are determined by both OM degree of reduction and nitrate-availability. Consistent with the data, DNRA is predicted to foster growth under extreme nitrate-limitation and with a reduced OM, whereas denitrifiers are favored as nitrate becomes more available and in the presence of oxidized OM. Furthermore, the growth rate is reduced when catabolism is coupled to low energy yielding EAs (e.g., sulfate) because of the low carbon use efficiency (CUE). However, the low CUE also decreases the nutrient demand for growth, thereby reducing N-limitation. We conclude that bioenergetics provides a useful conceptual framework for explaining growth rates under different metabolisms and multiple resource-limitations. INTRODUCTION Microorganisms (chemoheterotrophs) depend on organic matter (OM) not only as a carbon (C) source but also as an energy source. From a bioenergetics perspective, a single microbial cell can be considered as a system or an "engine" that converts dead OM into living cells. This engine also generates the energy required via an exchange of electrons with the surrounding environment (Roels, 1980a;Kleerebezem and Van Loosdrecht, 2010;Stockar, 2010). Specifically, during growth, microorganisms catabolize OM that generates the electrons (therefore, OM is an electron donor) taken up by terminal electron acceptors (EAs), thereby creating a redox system driven by the changes in Gibbs energy. A fraction of this energy is then utilized by microbial cells for maintaining and producing more cells (anabolism), while the rest is dissipated into the environment (McCarty, 2007;Smeaton and Van Cappellen, 2018;). This balance of electrons from the catabolic and anabolic reactions in the form of Gibbs energies frames the bioenergetic theory of microbial growth (Von ;Amend and LaRowe, 2019). In microbial ecology, energy-and C-limitations are often confounded (). However, based on the bioenergetic theory of microbial growth, these two controlling factors can be independent, due to the different degree of reduction of the OM (or the energy content of OM), defined as the number of electrons produced per C-mol of OM in a complete oxidation reaction. For example, when C is not limiting, microorganisms growing on glucose would have a higher growth rate compared to oxalate because of the higher number of electrons produced per C-mol of glucose catabolized, which results in higher carbon use efficiency (CUE) (the ratio of growth over C-uptake) (Roels, 1980a;. Moreover, how much energy can be extracted from catabolism also depends on which EAs are available. For example, when C is not limiting, the microorganisms that are catabolizing glucose under oxic conditions with oxygen as the EA would have a higher growth rate compared to those under anoxic conditions with iron as the EA (LaRowe and Amend, 2015). Energy-limitation not only reduces microbial growth by decreasing CUE (Roels, 1980a;;) but also alters microbial physiology (e.g., dormancy) under an extremely low substrate-availability (). We consider a microbial system as energy-limited when the energy content of OM or the availability of thermodynamically preferred EA constrains growth (), whereas it is C-limited when the C content of OM constrains growth. The combinations of C and energy availabilities create a spectrum of conditions ranging from relatively more C-to more energy-limited and (often) with co-limitation of these two resources. The importance of energy-limitations on OM degradation is often studied in anoxic environments (e.g., marine sediments, groundwater) because of the low availability of high energy yielding EAs (Hoehler and Jrgensen, 2013;;;). However, OM decomposition can also be inhibited by EA or degree of reduction of OM under fluctuating oxic and anoxic conditions found in paddy fields (;), wetlands and humid tropical forest soils (;;;Calabrese and Porporato, 2019;), and hyporheic zones (;;) or along spatial gradients in soil profiles and within aggregates (Ebrahimi and Or, 2016). There is growing interest in the bioenergetic regulation of OM decomposition under anoxic conditions in soils and aquatic systems because of the potential implications for greenhouse gas emissions and C-storage (;). For example, the formation of anoxic microsites in rapidly fluctuating redox environments in soils could temporarily inhibit the decomposition of more reduced forms of OM, promoting C storage (;). The chemical composition of OM determines its energy content, but also poses constraints on C-availability as C released via extracellular enzymatic reactions depends on OM chemistry. Reflecting this role, OM chemistry is traditionally used in soil C cycling models to separate C-compartments, but less is known on how the energy content affects microbial processes. Novel molecular methods such as Fourier-transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) mass spectrometry or nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) characterize the elemental composition of OM to unprecedented levels, posing new challenges on how to incorporate these data into soil C cycling models (;). Recently, Song et al. presented a substrate explicit decomposition model using data from high-resolution OM characterization that coupled Gibbs energy and C-balance during catabolic and anabolic processes to estimate microbial growth rate. However, such detailed chemical characterization of OM and its effect on metabolism might not be enough to predict changes in microbial growth rates when nutrients are also limited. Microorganisms are often considered to grow at a fixed chemical composition (homeostatic assumption) so that their ratios of C to other elements do not change when the elemental composition of their substrates varies, at least at the microbial community level (;b;). It is generally assumed that during growth, microorganisms try to meet their nitrogen (N)demand (i.e., growth rate/microbial C:N) using N from OM (thus releasing excess N via ammonification) and compensate for possible N-imbalances using inorganic N (N Inorg )-sources (immobilization). When the supply rate of N Inorg is lower than the rate of microbial N-demand, N-limitation ensues (). Microorganisms have adapted to deal with N-limited conditions. For example, they could increase the rate of respiration by an overflow respiration mechanism or reduce the uptake of OM by inhibiting extracellular enzyme production (;a;). Depending on the availability of external N Inorg and the C:N ratio of OM, stoichiometric theory quantifies the growth rate as conditions shift between C-and N-limitations (Sterner and Elser, 2002;;). However, how C-and N-limitations vary depending on the energy content of the OM remains to be studied. Also, the type of N Inorg -source controls microbial growth rate. Microorganisms require N in the form of ammonium (NH + 4 ) for any cell functions (e.g., protein synthesis); therefore, if the N Inorgsource is of a more oxidized form such as nitrate (NO − 3 ) or nitrite (NO − 2 ), it must be first reduced to NH + 4 to be used (Stouthamer, 1977;Lin and Stewart, 1997;). This reduction reaction has an energetic cost, because some of the electrons from the catabolism of OM must be allocated to the reduction of the N-source. Therefore, the availabilities of C, N, and energy lead to different patterns of resource-limitation, which affect microbial growth and respiration. For example, Garayburu-Caruso et al. showed a shift in the regulation of respiration rate from energy-to N-availability for C-vs. N-limited systems under oxic conditions. The respiration rate was thermodynamically regulated because it increased with decreasing degree of reduction of OM as long as N was abundant. In contrast, in N-limited conditions, respiration decreased with the N-content of OM, suggesting that the respiration rate was controlled by N-availability. This result indicates that the energetic constraints on microbial metabolism may become less critical in N-limited systems. To further complicate the picture, under anoxic conditions, different N compounds such as NO − 3, NO − 2, NO, or N 2 O can act as both EA to drive the catabolism of OM and N-source for microbial growth (;). One such example is the reduction of NO − 3 via denitrification (NO − 3 to N 2 ) and the dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonia (DNRA) (NO − 3 to NH + 4 ). Indeed, the activity of denitrifiers is higher than that of microorganisms performing DNRA at high N Inorg concentrations or in C-limited conditions, where OM already provides N for growth, and vice versa at low N Inorg concentrations (;van den ;). These examples illustrate the complex links between C-, N-, and energy-limitations, which we study here from a theoretical perspective (Figure 1). In this contribution, we build on the existing bioenergetics and stoichiometry theories to develop a theoretical framework for microbial growth under combined C-N-energy limitations. In particular, by integrating stoichiometry and bioenergetic theory of microbial growth, we present a generalized description of microbial growth rate and address the following questions: 1. Carbon-limitation vs. energy-limitation: What are the effects of OM degree of reduction and EA energy yield on microbial growth? 2. Nitrogen-limitation vs. energy-limitation: What are the effects of different N Inorg (NH + 4 or NO − 3 )-sources or using N Inorg (NO − 3 ) as both EA and N-source on microbial growth? 3. Carbon-, Nitrogen-, and energy-limitations: What are the effects of combined thermodynamic (OM degree of reduction and EA energy yield) and biogeochemical factors (OM C:N ratio and N Inorg -availability) on microbial growth? After addressing these questions, we discuss the importance of accounting for limitations in C, N, and energy to explain the variability in growth rate across environmental conditions. THE C-, N-, AND ENERGY-LIMITATIONS OF MICROBIAL GROWTH General Assumptions and Macrochemical Equations Microorganisms are open systems that constantly exchange matter and energy with their surroundings, thereby requiring a non-equilibrium approach to study their dynamics (Prigogine, 1967;;Ornes, 2017). The rates of transformation of mass in a non-equilibrium system depend on the Gibbs energy change, as opposed to systems in equilibrium where the Gibbs energy change mainly describes the feasibility of a process (Bauchop and Elseden, 1960;Jin and Bethke, 2007;). Additionally, the coupling of catabolic and anabolic processes is energy dependent, making the microbial CUE a function of the Gibbs energy changes (von ). While we do account for the energy-limitation on CUE, we neglect thermodynamic constraints on microbial-uptake rate (Boudart, 1976;Jin and Bethke, 2007;). These constraints are at play only at very low C-availabilities, when only microbial maintenance demand can be met (Hoehler and Jrgensen, 2013;)-these severely C-and energy-limited systems are not considered here, where we instead focus on conditions that allow for microbial growth. For simplicity, we take a bioenergetic (macrochemical) perspective on microbial growth and describe growth via the coupling of catabolic and anabolic reactions instead of describing individual metabolic pathways. Catabolic and anabolic reactions can be further broken down in several chains of reactions (LaRowe and Amend, 2015Amend,, 2016; however, we simplify the problem and only consider the overall reactants and products, i.e., oxidation of a single OM in catabolism and biosynthesis in anabolism. We assume that an extracellular breakdown of polymeric OM has already occurred, and the microorganisms take up low molecular weight OM available in the surroundings of their cells. Moreover, we assume that homeostasis for microbial growth, i.e., the microorganisms are described as a chemical entity (denoted by B) with fixed elemental ratios . If OM contains N, then microbial N-demand is first met by taking up the organic N-source; otherwise, an external N Inorg -source must be immobilized (;). As microbes require N in the form of NH + 4, more oxidized forms of the N Inorg -source must be reduced to NH + 4 before being converted into biomass (). Microorganisms use OM that acts as both electron donor and C-source with a given C:N ratio (CN OM ) and degree of reduction ( OM ). For a given N Inorg -source and EA, we can write a general metabolic equation for microbial growth as follows: where i s are the stoichiometric coefficients of the reactant and product species, N Inorg is the inorganic N source, e is the CUE, and OM ox and EA red are the oxidized and reduced forms of electron donors (OM) and acceptors, respectively (all symbols are listed and explained in Table 1). For example, under oxic conditions with O 2 as the EA, bicarbonate ion and water are OM ox and EA red, respectively. When EA and the N Inorg -source are the same such as in denitrification or DNRA pathways, the metabolic equation for microbial growth can be written as follows: where y N is the stoichiometric coefficient of the N Inorg -source, which is different in Eqs. and. In denitrification or DNRA pathways, the N-source is NO − 3, which is reduced to EA red ; i.e., either N 2 or NH + 4, respectively. Note that to balance the chemical reactions throughout the text, H + and H 2 O with appropriate stoichiometry must be added on either side; however, including H + and H 2 O is not necessary for our purposes, so we only balance C and N in the reactions. After defining the reaction rate (section "Microbial Growth Rate Under C-and N-Limitations"), in section "Bioenergetics of Microbial Growth" we formulate the stoichiometric coefficients of Eqs. and as the functions of microbial and OM C:N ratios, and the degrees of reduction of biomass, OM, and EA. In this way, these coefficients are calculated under a range C-, N-, and energylimited conditions. A schematic of the bioenergetic framework is provided in Figure 2. Microbial Growth Rate Under C-and N-Limitations Using the metabolic Eqs. and, we now formulate the microbial growth rate under C-and N-limited conditions by integrating stoichiometry theory and bioenergetics. As Eqs. and are written with respect to the uptake of 1 C-mol of OM, the rate of reaction is the same as the uptake rate of OM, denoted in C-limited conditions as U OM with units of C-mol OM day −1. The microbial growth rate G C under C-limitation can be written as follows: where the subscript C in G C denotes microbial growth rate under C-limitation, and e is the maximum CUE without considering maintenance costs (as mentioned above, we focus on conditions where growth can occur and maintenance respiration is relatively small). When the N Inorg -source is a limiting reactant, then the metabolic reaction rate is controlled by the N supply, and growth becomes N-limited. By dividing Eqs. and with the stoichiometric coefficient of the N Inorg -source ( N or y N ) and taking the rate of N Inorg supply as the rate of the metabolic reaction, we can write the microbial growth rate under N-limited condition as follows:, where the subscript N in G N denotes growth rate under N-limitation, and I N is the rate of supply of the N Inorg -source. Note that the units of G C and G N are the same, C-mol B day −1. A general form of microbial growth rate (G) can then be written by taking the minimum of G C and G N as defined by Eq. (Liebig's law), Here, we do not focus on the functional form of uptake kinetics, rather on using bioenergetics to model growth rate and stoichiometric constraints for given U OM. Hence, we normalize by U OM both growth rate G norm = G U OM and N Inorg uptake rate I norm = I N U OM. As a result, the non-dimensional growth rate becomes In the following sections, we consider the coupling of catabolic and anabolic reactions based on their Gibbs energy balances, and account for the energy cost to reduce N Inorg to estimate both CUE and the stoichiometric coefficient for N Inorg ("overall goal" in Figure 2). Bioenergetics of Microbial Growth The two general reactions in Eqs. and are here broken down into catabolic and anabolic reactions, and these are further broken down into oxidation and reduction half-reactions (Figure 2). This detailed formulation allows calculating the Catabolism of Organic Matter Without the loss of generality, the macrochemical catabolic reaction is formulated for one C-mol of OM. When OM does not contain any N or have high C:N ratios (N-limited), microorganisms immobilize N Inorg from the environment. If this N Inorg -source is not NH + 4, then some of the electrons produced from the oxidation of the OM must be allocated to the reduction of the N Inorg -source. This allocation is often performed by intracellular electron carrier proteins, either NADP(H) or ferredoxins. Therefore, the energetic cost of the reduction of the N Inorg -source to ammonium must be accounted for in the catabolic reaction. The catabolic reaction is formulated by considering the half-reaction of oxidation of OM and reduction of EA and N Inorg. To keep the formulation general, we separately consider the redox reactions for OM and EAs (top left in Figure 2). The half-reaction of oxidation of the OM can be written as follows: where OM ox is the oxidized form of OM, 1/CN OM is the stoichiometric coefficient for NH + 4 released during the oxidation, OM is the degree of reduction of the OM, and ox G OM is the change in Gibbs energy of the oxidation reaction. Note that for all Gibbs energy changes, the subscript of FIGURE 2 | Roadmap for the calculation of normalized microbial growth rate (G) as a function of OM and microbial C:N ratios (CN OM and CN B, respectively), and degrees of reduction of OM, EA, and biomass ( OM, EA, and B, respectively). Each box refers to a half or overall reaction (with equation number in brackets) and includes the parameters affecting the reaction stoichiometry (listed at the bottom of each box). Arrows represent the changes in Gibbs energy associated to each half reaction, which is then used to calculate the changes in Gibbs energy of the overall reactions. Symbols are defined in Table 1. indicates the reaction and the subscript of G is the substance per unit of which the Gibbs energy is reported. For simplicity, we assume that OM ox is always bicarbonate and catabolism does not produce any other organic product. Next, the reduction half-reaction of a generic EA can be written as follows: where EA is the number of moles of electron received by the EA, EA red is the reduced form of EA (e.g., H 2 O in case of O 2 ), and EA red is its stoichiometric coefficient; red G EA is the change in Gibbs energy of the reduction reaction. A list of commonly occurring half-reactions of reduction of EAs is provided in Supplementary Table 1. Next, the reduction of the N Inorg -source to ammonium is given by where N and red G N are, respectively, the number of moles of electrons accepted when reducing 1 N-mol of N Inorg -source and the change in Gibbs energy of the reaction to reduce the N-source. For NH + 4 as N Inorg -source, no reduction would be required and N = 0. The amount of N-source reduced to NH + 4 depends on the microbial N-demand for growth, which in turn depends on the CUE and the C:N ratio of the OM. If x N is the number of moles of N Inorg reduced to NH + 4, x N N moles of electron per mol of OM must be transferred from the oxidation of OM to the reduction of the N-source in Eq.. Finally, the catabolic reaction is obtained by adding the three half-reactions, Eqs. -, and adjusting the stoichiometric coefficients so that the electrons are balanced (top center of Figure 2), is the stoichiometric coefficient of the EA; cat G OM is the amount of Gibbs energy released by catabolizing 1 C-mol of OM for a given EA. Similar to Eq., cat G OM is given by summing the Gibbs energy of the three half-reactions, Eqs. -, multiplied by appropriate stoichiometric coefficients. In principle, cat G OM can be calculated directly from Eq. using Hess's law, if the involved species and their chemical formulae are known. However, such information is often not known, as in the case of plant residues or soil OM. Using Eq. is advantageous because the change in Gibbs energy of oxidation of OM can be estimated based on its degree of reduction OM, as proposed by LaRowe and Van Cappellen, The empirical formulation of ox G OM in Eq. holds under standard conditions, therefore it needs to be modified under non-standard OM aqueous concentrations . The OM of 1 C-mol of OM is estimated based on the OM chemical formula as follows: where n i for i = C, H, N, or O are the numbers of the i th element and z is the overall charge in the chemical formula of OM. While the actual values of OM can be calculated from the chemical formula of OM, here we explore a range of values from 0 (least reduced, CO 2 ) to 8 (most reduced, CH 4 ), to cover the whole spectrum of organic compounds. The change in Gibbs energy of the reduction reactions ( red G EA and red G N, Supplementary Table 1) are calculated using standard Gibbs energy of formation listed in Supplementary Table 3. With this information, cat G OM can be estimated from the degree of reduction of the OM. An example of the calculations for the catabolism of glycine with NO − 3 as both EA and the N-source, and of glucose with O 2 as the EA and NO − 3 as the N-source, are provided in Supplementary Table 2. Anabolism of Microbial Biomass Energy from catabolism is then transferred to the anabolism to support the synthesis of new biomass (center of Figure 2). Here, we formulate a generic reaction for the anabolism (biosynthesis) for 1 C-mol of microbial biomass. There are multiple ways of writing a macrochemical representation of an anabolic reaction (von ;Battley, 2009;Kleerebezem and Van Loosdrecht, 2010). We follow Battley, who simplifies Gibbs energy calculations by neglecting EA in anabolism. Briefly, 1 C-mol of biomass is formed from the same organic C used in catabolism and NH + 4 as the N-source . Further, a degree of reduction balance is used to balance the electrons, and the imbalance of C is balanced by adding OM ox (i.e., bicarbonate) to either side of the reaction. Thus, the anabolic reaction for an OM with given CN OM can be written as follows: where B = 4.2 is the degree of reduction of the microbial biomass and ana G B is the change in Gibbs energy of anabolism. Balancing N on both sides yields the stoichiometric coefficient of the N-source (i.e., NH + 4 ), The value of ana G B is estimated by writing the Gibbs energy balance of Eq., as follows: where C G OM and C G B are the changes in Gibbs energy of combustion for a given EA. Note that we have used combustion as the reference state so that only the organic C appears in Eq.. To find C G OM and C G B, we can regard a catabolic reaction as analogous to a combustion reaction when a N Inorg -source is not included. Therefore, for x N = 0 and O 2 as the EA, Eq. represents the complete combustion of an organic C compound to CO 2. Thus, from Eqs. and, we obtain C G OM and C G B as follows: Now, from Eqs. -, we obtain ana G B as follows: Examples of the anabolic reaction on glycine and glucose are provided in Supplementary Table 2. Overall Metabolic Reaction The overall metabolic reaction is obtained by summing the catabolic and anabolic reactions so that 1 C-mol of OM is used to form e C-mol of biomass (right of Figure 2). Thus, multiplying the catabolic reaction Eq. by 1 − e B OM and the anabolic reaction Eq. by e, and summing these reactions, gives the overall metabolic reaction of microbial growth as follows: OM + EA EA + NH 4 NH + 4 + N N Inorg → eB In Eq., r G OM is the Gibbs energy change for the overall metabolic reaction, and i are the stoichiometric coefficients of each reaction species (i = EA, EA red, NH + 4, N Inorg ). Equation thus recovers the form of Eqs. or, but now all stoichiometric coefficients can be determined as a function of the degrees of reduction of OM, EA, and biomass, and the C:N ratios of OM and biomass, In Eqs. -, x N is not known, but it can be calculated by setting NH 4 = 0, because NH + 4 used for microbial growth is already accounted for in the stoichiometric coefficient of the N-source. Thus, setting NH 4 = 0 yields the following: The expressions for EA and N can now be simplified by inserting x N in Eqs. and, which are expressed as follows: Equations and can be used to assess N-demand for microbial growth under oxic or anoxic conditions for any EA. Under C-limited, oxic conditions and assuming NH + 4 is the N-source, the rate of N-uptake, N U OM, is the same as given by Manzoni et al.. By setting Eq. equal to zero, we can calculate the threshold C:N ratio of the OM at which no NH + 4 is formed or immobilized. Above this C:N ratiooften called threshold elemental ratio (TER)-microbial growth becomes limited by the supply of organic N, which is expressed as follows: If CN OM < TER, then N > 0 and net release of NH + 4 occurs (i.e., net N mineralization), whereas if CN OM > TER, then N < 0 and net uptake of NH + 4 occurs (i.e., net immobilization). Moreover, if the supply of N Inorg, I N, cannot sustain the required rate of immobilization, the microbial growth rate is determined by the rate of supply of the external N Inorg -source; this condition is denoted as N-limitation (net required immobilization rate > I N ). Under N-limited conditions, microorganisms reduce the C-uptake rate, thereby decreasing their growth rate so that N-demand matches N Inorg -availability (i.e., I N ). Mathematically, the reduction in U OM is obtained from Eq. as a function of the stoichiometry of N in the overall metabolic reaction, which in turn is a function of CN OM and I norm. If EA and N Inorg -source are the same (i.e., NO − 3 ), such as during denitrification or DNRA, N is used for both oxidation of OM and microbial N-demand for growth; therefore, N-limitation would affect both uptake of OM and microbial growth. Thus, the total amount of N used is given as the sum of EA and N, as follows: Examples of the overall metabolic reaction on glycine and glucose are provided in Supplementary Table 2. Gibbs Energy Change of Metabolic Reaction and Carbon Use Efficiency The change in Gibbs energy of the metabolic reaction, r G OM , can be obtained by adding catabolic and anabolic reactions as done in Eq., and can be written as follows: Equation can be used to estimate r G OM knowing the CUE, or inversely it can be used to estimate CUE if r G OM is known. It has been shown that the energy dissipated from microbial systems can be predicted by the degree of reduction of the OM, OM (Heijnen and Dijken, 1992;). However, these formulations are based on the Gibbs energy dissipated to produce 1 C-mol of biomass ( r G B ); therefore, we divide Eq. by CUE and obtain the following: where r G B = r G OM e, cat G OM is given by Eq., and ana G B by Eq.. Simplifying the above equation to obtain CUE as a function of Gibbs energies yields the following: Finally, the only remaining unknown in Eq. is r G B, which is given by Liu et al. as follows: It is clear from Eqs.,, and that the microbial CUE depends mainly on the degree of reduction of the OM and microbial biomass, and the type of EAs. Note that in Eq., cat G OM is also a function of e, making Eq. an implicit non-linear equation in e, which therefore needs to be solved numerically. An example of metabolic reaction on glycine and glucose is presented in Supplementary Table 2. We assumed standard conditions for calculating Gibbs energy, so that the stoichiometry of the metabolic reactions is also representative of standard conditions, i.e., species concentrations are at 1 mol L −1, pH 7, temperature of 298 K, and pressure of 1 bar. In a dynamic system, changing concentrations of the involved species, pH, or temperature would change the Gibbs energy of metabolic reactions, and thus also the stoichiometric coefficients of such reactions. Our framework can be generalized by including the effects of non-standard conditions as shown in previous work (Kleerebezem and Van Loosdrecht, 2010;Amend, 2015, 2016;). To summarize the theory section, we started with a general description of microbial growth rate under C-or N-limited conditions (section "Microbial Growth Rate Under C-and N-Limitations"). The stoichiometric coefficients needed to calculate growth rate are estimated by splitting the overall metabolic reaction into catabolic and anabolic parts and considering their Gibbs energies (sections "Catabolism of Organic Matter" and "Anabolism of Microbial Biomass"). Finally, the stoichiometric coefficients of the metabolic reaction-mainly CUE (e)-and of N-uptake (v N or y N ) were constrained using bioenergetics (sections "Overall Metabolic Reaction" and "Gibbs Energy Change of Metabolic Reaction and Carbon Use Efficiency"). Table 2 summarizes some simplifications of EA, v N, and y N under specific conditions for the OM; e.g., when OM contains N or when EA and N Inorg -source are both NO − 3. RESULTS First, we studied the interactions between C-and energylimitations, showing how the degree of reduction of the OM and the energy-availability from the reduction of the EA ( red G EA ) affect the growth rate (section "Interactions Between C-and Energy-Limitations"). Second, we investigated the interactions among C-, N-, and energy-limitations (section "Interactions Among C-, N-, and Energy-Limitations"), when the OM either does not contain N (section "Microbial Growth on Organic Matter Without N") or it does (section "Microbial Growth on Organic Matter Containing N"). In section "Microbial Growth on Organic Matter Without N, " we showed how the degree of reduction of the OM under oxic conditions and different N Inorgsources (NO − 3 and NH + 4 ) and N availabilities affect the microbial growth rate. Next, we focused on growth rate under anoxic conditions when NO − 3 is both EA and N-source; in this case, NO − 3 is reduced to NH + 4 via either DNRA or denitrification pathway. In section "Microbial Growth on Organic Matter Containing N, " we studied the microbial growth rate along a gradient of organic N from OM and N Inorg -availability. In this case, we used NH + 4 as N-source, but calculated the growth rate under a range of EAs such as O 2, Fe 3+ (goethite), Fe 3+ (ferrihydrite), and SO 2− 4 (sulfate). For simplicity, in section "Interactions Among C-, N-, and Energy-Limitations, " we have further assumed that the availability of EA does not limit microbial growth. Interactions Between C-and Energy-Limitations In general, when N is not limiting, the normalized growth rate (G norm = e) increases with increasing degree of reduction of OM ( OM ), except at the high values of OM, when it can also decrease (Figure 3). For a given OM, G norm also increases proportionally to the change in Gibbs energy of the EA reduction red (different line colors in Figure 3). Within these general trends, specific interactions between OM and red G EA emerge. Under energy rich conditions; i.e., high values of both OM and |− red G EA | (e.g., brown curve), the normalized growth rate is maximum because of high CUE. Under energy-limited conditions, the growth increases with increasing OM as long as OM < 4.7, but for OM > 4.7, the growth rate starts decreasing when catabolism is coupled with low energy yielding EA (low values of |− red G EA |; e.g., orange curve). These combined trends cause the growth rate to attain a peak at an intermediate OM (blue-red curves). To summarize, purely C-limited conditions only occur at high OM and |− red G EA |, while the energetic constraints are at play in all other cases. Interactions Among C-, N-, and Energy-Limitations Microbial Growth on Organic Matter Without N Figure 4 shows how the normalized microbial growth rate varies under C-limitation vs. N-limitation under oxic conditions. At high N-availability (high values of I norm ), microbes are C-limited and the normalized growth rate only depends on the CUE. In turn, the CUE increases with a higher degree of reduction of the OM, causing the growth rate to increase with OM (lines with different colors), as also shown in Figure 3. In contrast, at low N-availability (low values of I norm ), microbes are N-limited and their growth is constrained by I norm instead of CUE. As a consequence, N-limited growth is independent of the degree of reduction of the OM ( Table 2). When microbes are supplied with an N Inorg -source other than NH + 4, the energetic cost for NO − 3 reduction to NH + 4 reduces the CUE . Even if Figure 4 shows the normalized growth rate under oxic conditions, the same dependence of the growth rate on N Inorg -availability and OM occurs for any EA also under anoxic conditions, although the lines shift depending on the metabolic pathway of N, as shown next. Figure 5 shows the transition of microbial growth rate from Cto energy-to N-limitation under anoxic conditions when NO − 3 is used both as EA and N Inorg -source via DNRA (solid curves) or denitrification (dashed curves) pathway. The normalized growth rate for both pathways increases linearly at low values of OM, attains a maximum, and then decreases non-linearly for high values of OM (Figure 5A). Under C-limited conditions, the growth rate is higher for the denitrification as compared to the DNRA pathway for all values of OM (cf. dashed vs. solid brown curves in Figure 5A). Conditions transition to N-limitation at high OM when I norm < 1.5 (colored curves). To clarify where this transition occurs, Figure 5B shows the full responses of G C, norm (only C-limitation; black curves) and G N, norm (only N-limitation; colored curves) to changes in OM. For a given level of I norm, the N-limited branch of the growth curve is initially flat, then decreases with increasing OM. This is because under N-limited conditions, CUE per unit of total NO − 3 utilized (e/y N ) decreases as OM increases for reduced compunds ( OM > 4.7). Changing the level of external N Inorg (I norm ) simply re-scales the growth rate under N-limited conditions because G N, norm = (e/y N )I norm . Under N-limitation and in contrast to C-limited conditions, the growth rate is higher for DNRA as compared to the denitrification pathway (cf. solid vs. dashed blue curves in Figure 5A, enlarged view provided in Supplementary Figure 1). Microbial Growth on Organic Matter Containing N The microbial growth rate for given OM (curves with different colors in Figure 6) and availability of N Inorg (NH + 4 ; solid vs. dashed curves) is stable at low OM C:N ratio (CN OM ) when organic N is abundant (C-and energy-limitations). Under these conditions, the microbial growth rate also increases with increasing OM and it does not depend on N-availability (as shown in Figure 3). In contrast, under N-limited conditions, the growth rate depends on both OM and CN OM ( Table 2). As CN OM 2 | Values of the stoichiometric coefficients for the N-source ( N ) and microbial growth rate (G N ), for various types of OM and N Inorg -sources. | Variation of normalized growth rate (G norm ) with the degree of reduction of the OM ( OM on the x-axis) and energy available from the reduction of EA ( red G EA ; curves with different colors). increases, the supply of organic N for microbial growth decreases, up to the point where growth becomes limited by the supply of N Inorg. Under these conditions, the growth rate is reduced to match the N Inorg supply ( Table 2); therefore, the growth rate also decreases with decreasing I norm (solid vs. dashed curves). Contrary to the negative effect of low OM under C-limitation, low OM reduces the effects of N-limitation by forcing microbes to grow at a slower rate, which lowers their N-demand. The different EAs shift the relative position of energy-, C-, and N-limitation regions in the space of CN OM and OM (Figure 7). In the case of O 2 and Fe 3+ (goethite or ferrihydrite) as EAs, the growth rate varies as in Figure 6, i.e., it is maximum for OM with high OM and low CN OM (C-limited region), decreases with decreasing OM (energy-limited region), and is lowest at high values of CN OM (N-limited region). In all these cases the growth rate decreases only slightly when OM is highly reduced. In the case of SO 2− 4 as the EA (see also the orange curve in Figure 3), the growth rate at a given CN OM first increases with increasing OM, reaches its maximum values for OM close to 4 and then decreases. For lower values of OM, the growth rate decreases as CN OM increases because of transition from C-to N-limited conditions, similar to the behavior under other EA, whereas at high OM N-limitation does not occur even at CN OM as high as 1,000 C-mol (N-mol) −1. As a result, the energy-limited region shifts from left where it is caused by low OM, to the right in panel D where it is caused by high | r G B | (see Supplementary Figure 2 for r G B as function of OM ). Microbial Growth: Missing Link Between Bioenergetic and Stoichiometric Regulation in Biogeochemical Models Traditionally, biogeochemical models assume that microbes are limited by C-or N-availability, depending on C:N ratio of OM and availability of N Inorg (NH + 4 or NO − 3 ). These limitations regulate the rate of OM decomposition and the partitioning of C and N between growth and mineralized products (Cherif and Loreau, 2007;). Similar stoichiometric constraints are implemented in models describing decomposition in litter and soil , or in the water column or sediments of aquatic systems . These models, except for recent developments, tend to neglect energetic constraints on both C fluxes and their partitioning between growth and respiration, or implicitly assume that C-and energylimitations are equivalent. Building on previous bioenergetics theory, here we formulate microbial growth as a function of C and N stoichiometric constraints and include energy-limitation as an additional constraint acting via: (i) the change in Gibbs energy of OM oxidation, which is controlled by the degree of reduction of the OM ( OM ), and (ii) the change in Gibbs energy of EA reduction ( red G EA ). These factors affect the efficiency of OM conversion into biomass (i.e., CUE), thus determining the microbial growth rate. These two bioenergetic factors interact with two biogeochemical ones: (iii) availability of organic or N Inorg for growth (measured by CN OM and I N, respectively) and (iv) availability of C for growth and catabolism (U OM ). In natural environments, either of these four factors can become limiting and thus may reduce microbial activity. For example, when nutrients are not limiting, fluctuating soil moisture would change the redox status, forming zones of high or low microbial activity because of varying degree of the reduction potential of the local EA, even if the supply of organic C and its Notably, these four factors can interact. For instance, energylimitation can lower N-demand, thereby reducing N-limitation, while N-limitation, when microbes metabolize oxidized N (such as NO − 3 ) for growth, creates an additional energy demand on the available OM. In the following, we discuss our results regarding (i) Cand energy-limitation (section "C-and Energy-Limitations: Effects of Organic Matter Degree of Reduction and Electron Acceptor Energy Yield on Growth"; answering question 1 in the Introduction), (ii) N-and energy-limitation (section "Nand Energy-Limitations: Effects of Different N Inorg -Sources on Growth" and "N-and Energy-Limitations: Using Nitrate as Both Electron Acceptor and N Inorg -Source on Growth"; answering question 2 in the Introduction), and (iii) combined C-, N-, and energy-limitation (section "C-, N-, and Energy-Limitations: Effects of Combined Thermodynamic and Biogeochemical Factors on Microbial Growth"; answering question 3 in the Introduction). We then conclude with a broader discussion on the limitations and implications of the proposed bioenergetic framework (section "Outlook: Approach Limitations and Implications of Bioenergetics in Microbial Ecology"). C-and Energy-Limitations: Effects of Organic Matter Degree of Reduction and Electron Acceptor Energy Yield on Growth The overall patterns in normalized growth rate or CUE with the degree of reduction and type of N Inorg -source for microbial growth are similar to those described in other studies FIGURE 6 | OM containing N: variation of normalized microbial growth rate (G norm ) along a gradient of OM C:N ratio under oxic conditions, and with varying degree of reduction of the OM ( OM ; curves with different colors) and two levels of N Inorg -availability (I norm, solid vs. dashed curves). For OM > 5, curves are close to each other so that the curve for OM = 5 is not visible and is below the brown curve. (Roels, 1980b;Smeaton and Van Cappellen, 2018). When microorganisms catabolize OM using high energy yielding EA such as O 2 or NO − 3, their growth rate increases with the increasing energy content of the OM utilized, i.e., OM (Figure 3). Garayburu-Caruso et al. showed decreased respiration rates under oxic conditions for more reduced OM (high OM ). Based on our framework, we interpreted their observations as low respiration rate coupled with high CUE (thus, high growth rate) when more reduced compounds are decomposed. However, if the catabolism is performed using low energy yielding EA (low values of |− red G EA |), the growth rate increases with increasing OM at first, but then decreases to a value close to zero for more reduced OM (Figure 3). The key to understanding this pattern is the variation of cat G OM and ox G OM with OM (Supplementary Figure 2). ox G OM (black curve, Supplementary Figure 2) is negative for OM < 1.88 and positive for OM > 1.88; therefore, for OM < 1.88 a low energy yielding EA would result in overall negative cat G OM (blue or orange curve Supplementary Figure 2A). This means that the catabolic reaction is still feasible, although with lower CUE because of the low magnitude of cat G OM. For OM > 1.88, ox G OM is positive, so that a low energy yielding EA could result in overall positive cat G OM values representing a non-spontaneous reaction, which means that the catabolic reaction is not feasible and uptake of OM stops. Such a reaction would lead to CUE = 0 in Figure 3. Moreover, for intermediate values of |− red G EA | (e.g., EAs such as Fe 3, SO 2− 4 ), the growth rate or CUE decreases with OM above OM > 4.7 (Figure 3) because microbes dissipate Gibbs energy (| r G B | from the overall metabolic reaction) faster than it is produced from the catabolic reaction with increasing OM (Supplementary Figure 2, panel C). However, this is not the case when O 2 is the EA as CUE remains a monotonically increasing function of OM. Thus, purely C-limited conditions are only attained when the substrate is reduced and oxygen is the EA; in other conditions, the energylimitation reduces microbial growth, even though the reaction rates still scale with substrate C content (C-energy co-limitation). Our results show an inhibition effect of reduced OM (high OM ) on growth when catabolism is coupled with low energy yielding EAs such as Fe 3+ or SO 2− 4, as an outcome of decreased growth rate caused by low CUE (Figures 3, 7). Under energylimited environments, if microbial growth is not limited by the supply of C, then our framework would predict higher respiration for more reduced compounds caused by low CUE. For example, when sulfate reducing bacteria are grown in batch or chemostat with ethanol, acetate, or lactate as substrates, more hydrogen sulfide (a proxy for respiration) was produced with ethanol compared to the other two substrates (White and Gadd, 1996). This is expected because ethanol produces more electrons compared to acetate and lactate per C mol; therefore, more SO 2− 4 is used, resulting in higher respiration. Further, Zheng et al. showed that as O 2 becomes limiting, growth is mainly controlled by CUE, and respiration remained unchanged since the supply of dissolved organic C did not change during their incubation experiment (). However, in some natural environments such as marine sediments or deep soil, the respiration rate of reduced OM can decrease under energy-limitation imposed by low energy yielding EA (Jin and Bethke, 2007;;;). This decrease in metabolic rates (respiration rate) is explained using a thermodynamic factor that decreases as the energy produced from catabolism decreases. Such natural environments are often limited in the availability of C as well, so the microbial metabolism is restricted to maintenance functions (or basal power requirement). In other words, microbes are under a physiological survival state without significant growth, while in our framework, we focus on respiration processes that are coupled to growth. Furthermore, Worrall et al. showed that the Gibbs energy of formation of particulate OM decreases with depth in peatlands, which implies that the Gibbs energy of combustion (assuming O 2 as EA) increases with depth. Worrall et al. related this observation to the accumulation of OM in peatlands, as OM becomes "thermodynamically inhibited" for microbial uptake and can thus remain in the system. In Figure 3, we showed a similar effect. With increasing depth, oxygenavailability decreases, other EAs become available, and when OM oxidation is coupled with low energy yielding EAs, Gibbs energy produced from catabolism decreases even if OM is composed of labile C such as glucose. As a result of energy-limitation, growth rate and CUE decrease with depth. Therefore, our approach provides an alternative explanation to Worrall et al. results, in which the thermodynamic factor proposed by Jin and Bethke was used to explain thermodynamic inhibition. Understanding the interplay between C-and energylimitations requires considering all components of bioenergetic regulation of OM decomposition, because the degree of reduction of OM (and thus its chemical nature) controls decomposition together with the coupled half-reaction of the EA reduction. The latter might constrain microbial growth even on energy-rich OM. N-and Energy-Limitations: Effects of Different N Inorg -Sources on Growth The metabolism of NO − 3 varies across microorganisms and with environmental conditions (Lin and Stewart, 1997;;). For example, CUE and growth rate are decreased if NO − 3 is used instead of NH + 4 as the sole N-source (Stouthamer, 1977;) (Figure 4). Our model explains this decrease with the energetic cost of NO − 3 reduction, providing a complementary explanation to the inhibition of NO − 3 -uptake in the presence of NH + 4 (Kobayashi and Ishimoto, 1973;Rice and Tiedje, 1989;Polcyn and Luciski, 2003). Moreover, the transition from N-to energy-limitation (or vice versa) depends on different processes under oxic and anoxic conditions. Under oxic conditions, the energy-limitation caused by a low degree of reduction of the OM alleviates N-limitation when N-availability decreases. In fact, the transition from energy to N-limitation occurs at lower N-availability when OM decreases, because N-demand at low OM is also lower (Figures 4, 6). Thus, under oxic conditions, shifts in N-demand driven by energy availability define the transition from energy-to N-limitation. N-and Energy-Limitations: Using Nitrate as Both Electron Acceptor and N Inorg -Source on Growth Under anoxic conditions, when NO − 3 is used as both EA and N Inorg -source for biomass, microorganisms compete for NO − 3 reduction via denitrification or DNRA pathway. As a result, the N metabolic pathway (e.g., denitrification vs. DNRA), by determining the N-demand for catabolic and anabolic processes, controls how the transition between energy-and N-limitations occurs (Figure 5). On the one hand, denitrification may cause N-limitation by removing N from the system, whereas DNRA simply reduces NO − 3 to NH + 4. In fact, under N-limited conditions, denitrifiers need to reduce an additional amount of NO − 3 to NH + 4 to meet their N-demand for growth compared to the DNRA pathway, which produces excess NH + 4 through catabolism. Therefore, when NO − 3 -availability is low, microbes performing DNRA would outcompete denitrifiers, as DNRA allows higher growth rate than denitrification for all values of OM (Figure 5B, solid vs. dashed curves). On the other hand, denitrification produces more Gibbs energy per electron transferred to oxidation of OM compared to DNRA, which results in overall a higher Gibbs energy of catabolism for 1 C-mol of OM (Supplementary Table 1). Therefore, with abundant NO − 3, microbial CUE for denitrification is higher than for the DNRA pathway ( Figure 5B, dashed vs. solid black curves). As a result, microbial N-demand is always met, and growth is limited by the energy produced from catabolism; hence, denitrifiers have a higher growth rate than microbes performing DNRA for all values of OM (Figure 5A, dashed vs. solid curves for I norm = 1.5). Between these two extreme cases of NO − 3 poor vs. NO − 3 rich conditions, the microbial growth rate of two pathways varies depending on OM (Figure 5). At low values of OM, growth is energy-limited and since denitrification produces more Gibbs energy, denitrifiers are likely dominant. In contrast, at high values of OM, N-limitation becomes the controlling factor, so that microbes performing DNRA would dominate. With labile OM, such as glucose or acetate (both with degree of reduction 4), our theory would predict dominance of the DNRA pathway, because of higher growth rate at low nitrate concentration compared to dominance of denitrification pathway at high nitrate concentration (see Figure 5A). This prediction is similar to observations from field, lab or modeling studies (;van den ;). However, most experimental studies ignore the role of OM degree of reduction as C is provided in labile form (e.g., glucose or acetate), and N Inorg -availability is manipulated by adding NO − 3 or NH + 4 (van den ;). Therefore, our results from Figures 4, 5 could be used to generate hypotheses or explain empirical results where the dominance of microbial communities is assessed by altering the quality of added substrates (its degree of reduction) under varying N Inorg -availability. For example, we predicted higher denitrifier growth rate feeding on oxidized OM, but higher growth rate of microbes performing DNRA feeding on reduced OM under moderate nitrate-availability ( Figure 5A, green lines). C-, N-, and Energy-Limitations: Effects of Combined Thermodynamic and Biogeochemical Factors on Microbial Growth When all three limitations-C, N, and energy-are considered, the overall patterns in microbial growth rate remain similar to those described in previous sections. Under oxic conditions, the effects of N-limitation on growth rate are decoupled from those arising under C-and energy-limitations (Figures 6, 7A). Under C-limitation, the growth rate is mainly determined by the CUE, which is controlled by OM, whereas under N-limitation, the growth rate is determined by the N-imbalance, which is controlled by the C:N ratio of OM and N Inorgavailability. The transition point between C-and N-limitations occurs at progressively higher N-availability as the N-demand increases with more reduced OM. Garayburu-Caruso et al. showed that observed respiration rates under C excess (high concentration of C-, N-limited) conditions were controlled by N-availability, whereas under C-limited (low concentration of C) conditions, they were controlled by the degree of reduction of OM, indicating bioenergetic regulation of OM decomposition only under C-limitation; however, this is only valid for oxic conditions. When the growth rate is analyzed in the CN OM − − OM space, contrasting patterns emerged with the type of EA utilized . For example, the dominating factors, C-, N-, or energy-limitation, controlling the growth rates are switched as the energy content of OM increases ( OM ). This is explained by noting that when catabolism is coupled with low energy yielding EAs, the overall energy obtained from catabolism is very small; therefore, decreasing the growth rate as CUE is decreased (Figure 3). The Case of Overflow Respiration Response Under N-Limited Conditions We tested how energy-limitation would affect the growth rate, if microbes were to respire more rather than reducing OM-uptake during N-limitation. In fact, under N-limited conditions, the growth rate defined by Eq. assumes that the growth is reduced by decreasing OM-uptake rate through the stoichiometric coefficients for N ( Table 2), similar to the "N inhibition" mechanism described by Manzoni and Porporato. This mechanism represents a downregulation of extracellular enzyme production. However, other strategies for microbial growth under N-limitation can have a different effect on the growth rate. One putative mechanism is overflow respiration or exudation of excess C, which suggests that under N-limitation, microbes do not reduce the uptake of OM; instead, they remove extra C by overflow respiration (;;), higher investment in extracellular enzymes, or possibly exuding more. This is mathematically achieved by reducing microbial CUE at a constant uptake rate of OM (). We tested whether this mechanism would affect growth rate when varying OM, CN OM, and availability of different EAs in Supplementary Figures 3, 4. As expected, the variation of growth rate with OM under C-limited conditions remains the same as shown in Figures 6, 7. However, under N-limitation, the growth rate is much higher when overflow respiration is performed, because the supply of N from the OM is not lowered (compare Supplementary Figure 3 vs. Figure 6, and Supplementary Figure 4 vs. Figure 7). This metabolic regulation would thus appear to be "optimal" () because it allows higher growth rate compared to reducing the substrate uptake rate. As CN OM increases under N-limitation, the CUE itself decreases, so that all growth curves converge to a single curve for a given N Inorg -availability and regardless of OM. Outlook: Approach Limitations and Implications of Bioenergetics in Microbial Ecology While we studied microbial growth for given environmental conditions, in natural settings, amount and quality of OM, availability of oxygen and inorganic EAs, and microbial biomass stoichiometry and community composition vary through time and at different time scales. Applying bioenergetics in a dynamic context where both state variables (mass and energy of substrates and microbial compartments) and environmental conditions change through time would require complete mass and energy balance equations, including the definition of the rates of consumption and transport of mass and energy. For example, dynamic simulations show that DNRA and denitrification pathways coexist for a range of C:N ratio of OM and oxic/anoxic conditions (van de ;van den ;;); however, our study could not capture such behavior because our formulation is time implicit. Moreover, in a dynamic system, the degree of reduction of degrading OM changes during decomposition, which provides a bioenergetic link to the continuous nature of chemical changes and OM stability (Williams and Plante, 2018). Systems with fluctuating redox status may face frequent changes from energyrich to energy-limited conditions; therefore, more reduced OM can accordingly become energetically favorable or unfavorable, and C storage would depend on the time scale of such fluctuations (;;;). Similarly, in energy-limited systems (anoxic conditions with lower availability of favorable EA), more reduced compounds are energetically unfavorable, which may lead to their longer turnover time, and thus accumulation (;). We also assumed standard conditions to simplify Gibbs energy calculations, whereas in natural systems the concentrations of reaction species change through time. Therefore, Gibbs energy calculations of catabolic and anabolic reactions, and the associated stoichiometric coefficients, would need to be timedependent. Further, we assumed that microorganisms adapt to N-limitation based on their fixed elemental ratio, which has been reported to be one of the limitations of Liebig's law of the minimum (Tang and Riley, 2021). Allowing microorganisms to change their elemental ratio (i.e., CN B ) to balance resource acquisition would affect CUE as well as other stoichiometric coefficients . Flexible microbial C:N could also have long-term consequences in dynamic contexts such as during litter decomposition )-higher C:N could allow higher allocation of C to growth, resulting in more necromass that could be ultimately stabilized in soil. Thus, our formulation should be expanded to be used under non-standard and dynamic conditions. Despite the limitations of our approach and the complexities inherent in coupling mass and energy balances, bioenergetic approaches are promising to explain patterns in microbial growth rate (;) and microbial community structure (Grokopf and Soyer, 2016;Seto and Iwasa, 2020;). For example, Grokopf and Soyer showed how two microbial species can coexist at a steady state using a coupled kinetic and bioenergetic growth model under energy-limited conditions. Traditional kinetic models (Monod equation) could not predict such behavior. Furthermore, bioenergetics-based models provide tools to link genome to population scale models . New models are exploring the potential of bioenergetics to study how microbial metabolic diversity and spatial heterogeneity of resources interact and shape community dynamics and resource niches in the complex soil environment (Araujo ;;;;;Ben ;;Dal ;Desmond-Le ). Bioenergetics can thus be a useful complement to traditional biogeochemical models describing only the dynamics of C and nutrients. CONCLUSION The bioenergetic principles provide a unified theory for integrating kinetic and stoichiometric constraints on microbial growth. In this work, we showed how bioenergetics could be used to link the stoichiometry of microbial growth under different types of metabolisms and varying environmental conditions. Specifically, we quantified microbial growth rate in C-, N-, and energy-limited systems and used our theory to explain patterns in growth rate using two bioenergetic variables, i.e., the degree of reduction of the OM ( OM ) and the energy yield of the EA reduction, and two biogeochemical ones, i.e., availability of organic N or N Inorg for growth (CN OM, I norm ) and of C for growth and catabolism (U OM ). In general, under C-rich and energy-limited conditions, the growth rate peaks at intermediate OM and increases with high energyyielding EA. Our analysis also qualitatively explains microbial activity patterns across a range of metabolic pathways (aerobic, denitrification, DNRA). We showed that energy-limitations could reduce N-limitation by decreasing CUE, and N-limitation exacerbates energy-limitation by imposing additional energy requirements such as nitrate reduction in denitrification. Applications of bioenergetics provide a powerful tool that can be used to study microbial growth dynamics and diverse metabolic pathways. Since metabolic diversity is closely related to microbial community diversity, bioenergetics could prove valuable to understand patterns in microbial ecology driven by gradients of energy-and nutrient-availabilities. DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author. AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS AC designed the study and developed the theory with feedback from SM and SC and implemented the framework, produced the results, and drafted the manuscript. All authors commented and revised the manuscript. |
Porcine ventricular endocardial cells in culture express the inducible form of nitric oxide synthase 1 We have investigated whether porcine endocardial cells in culture express the inducible, Ca2+independent form of nitric oxide (NO) synthase. 2 NO synthase activity in cytosolic extracts of endocardial cells was measured by estimation of the rate of formation of lcitrulline from larginine. 3 Treatment of the cells in culture with lipopolysaccharide or cytokines induced a Ca2+independent NO synthase activity in the cell cytosol. The combination of tumour necrosis factor (TNF, 10 ng ml−1) and interleukin1 (IL1, 10 ng ml−1) induced the greatest enzyme activity. 4 The increased Ca2+independent NO synthase activity following exposure to cytokines was parallelled by an increase in guanosine 3:5cyclic monophosphate (cyclic GMP) levels in the endocardial cell cytosol. 5 Simultaneous addition of dexamethasone (0.011 m) or cycloheximide (0.033 m) inhibited in a concentrationdependent manner TNF and IL1induced expression of Ca2+independent NO synthase activity. Neither dexamethasone (1 m) nor cycloheximide (3 m) had any effect on the activity of the constitutive NO synthase. 6 The possible pathophysiological consequences of endocardial expression of the inducible NO synthase are discussed. |
More Praise for Push Back
'This important new volume is essential reading for those wishing to understand the decades-long conflict in Sri Lanka, the quest for accountability, and the challenges of building peace in the wake of conflict.'
Chandra Lekha Sriram, University of East London
'A brilliant exposition of the end game in the Sri Lankan civil war. This book is essential background reading for anyone interested in how civil wars end and the role of different actors in these processes.'
Kevin Clements, University of Otago
About the author
Judith Large is a senior research fellow at the Conflict Analysis Research Centre, University of Kent. She has over twenty-five years' experience in international conflict analysis, mediation and peacebuilding, ranging from work with civic groups and national governments to UN agencies, including the UNHCR, UNDP, BCPR and WHO.
PUSH BACK
Sri Lanka's Dance with Global Governance
JUDITH LARGE
Push Back: Sri Lanka's Dance with Global Governance was first published in 2016 by Zed Books Ltd, The Foundry, 17 Oval Way, London SE11 5RR, UK.
www.zedbooks.net
Copyright © Judith Large 2016.
The right of Judith Large to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Typeset in Sabon by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon
Index by Ed Emery
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Cover photo © Chris Stowers/Panos
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Timeline of Sri Lankan history
Foreword
Map of Sri Lanka
Introduction: reflections on 'optics' – Sri Lanka and dilemmas in the study of violence and global governance
1 War's end and competing models for recovery
2 Executive presidency and the unitary state
3 Non-interference Sri Lankan style
4 The outsiders
5 Majoritarianism or divide and rule
6 Home-grown solutions and the quest for accountability
7 Small state in a large system
Notes
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book was inspired by the work and engagement of particular individuals, both in and outside Sri Lanka, notably Kishali Pinto Jayawardena, Chandra Jayaratne, Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Asanga Welikala, Faaiz Ameer, Sreen Saroor, Ruki Fernando, Bhavani Fonseka, Suthaharan Nadarajah, Madurika Rasaratnam and David Whaley. Particular thanks go to Malcolm Rodgers for his thoughtful insights and useful, structured conversations along the way; to Swarna Rajagopalan for her patient explaining of the intricacies of South Asian conceptions of sovereignty and nationhood; to Visaka Dharmadasa and Fred Carver for their individual sharing and permissions to use the diagrams in Chapter 6; to Sherine Xavier for special conversations; and to Miriam Young for her quiet encouragement. Alan Keenan of the International Crisis Group writes acute informative updates and briefings and has been approachable for deliberations on ways of understanding national and international developments, as have Peter Bowling, Richard Reoch and Yolanda Foster, who shared their country experience. The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) and International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) in Colombo both produce excellent study resources and have been welcoming in Colombo, even at short notice. Appreciation is also extended to the Social Architects, and to the many interviewees and contacts in Kandy, Mannar, Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Sampur who gave of their time and trust. Feargal Cochrane at the Conflict Analysis Research Centre (CARC), University of Kent, offered a collegial base in the UK, and warm thanks go to Sakuntala Kadirgamar for her long-term friendship and to Saro Kadirgamar for her generosity and special hospitality. Gillian Evans provided technical support, and continual moral support came from Martin Large and the family. Kenneth Bush, who was generous and passionate in his reflections and memories of extensive experience in Sri Lanka, died suddenly before the draft manuscript was completed. His loss will touch many.
Useful in-depth learning, critical considerations and reflections were prompted by participation in an ICES conference on 'Ethical Futures: Dialogues on State, Society and Ethical Existence', held in Colombo from 30 May to 1 June 2013. Early observations also shaping this study came from working visits to Sri Lanka under the auspices of the Non-official Group of Friends of Sri Lanka led by Ambassador Richard Armitage, whose connection to the island dates back to an official mission in 1983. Particularly noteworthy for the inquiry was a sobering visit to Jaffna in 2010 with Dr Louisa Chan-Boegli and the former President of Mauritius, Cassam Uteem, and subsequent wider travel through the North and East with Ms Kara Bue. My thanks go to Zed Books and to Judith Forshaw. Any oversights or mistakes within these pages are entirely my own.
Much contested, and evident through institutional architecture with organising principles geared towards specific issue areas, global governance is not a fixed point or finite structural configuration but a system of relationships and transactions, beliefs, sanctions and incentives for behaviours. This book does not claim new theoretical breakthroughs. Rather, it seeks to tell the story of a particular ten-year period in the life of the Sri Lankan polity, its people and related interest groups. At its heart is a crisis of the state, and the question of how a ruling party sought to both court and refute international opinion. As such, it probes necessarily into the deep structures and contextual conditions that provided a basis for chosen positioning, messaging and actions from 2005 to 2015 by the Rajapaksa government.
The inquiry has been driven by the pressing challenge to understand both historical needs for and blockages to social justice in this particular South Asian context. More than that, its analytical lens suggests that we are all interconnected in terms of our varying respective networks, states, governments and shared transnational social movements; our actions or non-action with respect to norms of global governance. The Sri Lankan conflict is a macrocosm for its inhabitants and all those affected, including the diaspora. It is also a case study that provides a mirror on wider trends and dynamics, offering learning on war-to-peace transitions, social mobilisation, power and leadership, human rights advocacy, securitisation, protection, inclusion and accountability. The thought attributed to Gramsci, 'Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will', runs through this examination of one decade in an ongoing story. This book, a modest outsider view, is dedicated to the many talented and caring people actively working for a better future in Sri Lanka.
Judith Large, September 2016
ABBREVIATIONS
ACF | Action Contre la Faim
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ADB | Asian Development Bank
ASEAN | Association of Southeast Asian Nations
BBS | Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force)
BJP | Bharatiya Janata Party
BRICS | Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa
CHOGM | Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
CID | Criminal Investigation Department
CPA | Centre for Policy Alternatives
CSO | civil society organisation
EPRLF | Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front
FARA | Foreign Agents Registration Act
GDP | gross domestic product
GoSL | Government of Sri Lanka
GSP | General System of Preferences (EU)
ICCPR | International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
ICES | International Centre for Ethnic Studies
ICG | International Crisis Group
ICJ | International Commission of Jurists
ICRC | International Committee of the Red Cross
IDP | internally displaced person
IFI | international financial institution
IIGEP | International Independent Group of Eminent Persons
IMF | International Monetary Fund
INGO | international non-governmental organization
JHU | Jathika Hela Urumaya (National Sinhala Heritage Party)
JVP | Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People's Liberation Front)
LLRC | Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission
LTTE | Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
MP | member of parliament
NAM | Non-Aligned Movement
NGO | non-governmental organisation
OECD | Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
OHCHR | Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
OIC | Organization of Islamic Cooperation
OISL | OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka
ONUR | Office of National Unity and Reconciliation
PLOTE | People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam
PR | public relations
PSC | parliamentary select committee
PTA | Prevention of Terrorism Act
R2P | responsibility to protect
SFM | Sri Lankan Secretariat for Muslims
SLA | Sri Lankan Army
SLMC | Sri Lanka Muslim Congress
SLMM | Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission
TELO | Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization
TGTE | Transitional Government of Tamil Eelam
TID | Terrorism Investigation Division
TMVP | Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal
TNA | Tamil National Alliance
TULF | Tamil United Liberation Front
UNDP | United Nations Development Programme
UNESCO | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNHCR | United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
UNHRC | United Nations Human Rights Council
UNOPS | United Nations Office for Project Services
UNP | United National Party
UPFA | United People's Freedom Alliance
UTHR (J) | University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna)
TIMELINE OF SRI LANKAN HISTORY
A distinctive, complex multi-centric civilisation can be traced back to the sixth century BC. Portuguese and Dutch occupation of coastal areas took place between 1505 and the late eighteenth century, followed by a British colonial period. After the fall of Singapore in World War II, the British moved their naval base to Ceylon and the island suffered Japanese bombing of military installations as a result.
1946 | New constitution agreed. United National Party (UNP) founded.
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1947 | Elections see in new coalition government composed of Sinhala Maha Sabha Party, UNP and Tamil Congress.
1948 | Ceylon granted dominion status and full autonomy within the Commonwealth of Nations.
1949 | Parliamentary Elections Act amended to disenfranchise Indian Tamil plantation workers as well as many citizens with Indian or Pakistani ancestry.
1955 | Ceylon becomes member state of the United Nations (UN).
1956 | Sinhala-only language policy introduced. Widespread violence and Tamil deaths during ensuing protests.
1958 | Anti-Tamil pogrom, attacks and counter-attacks, with victims from both communities.
1971 | Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) launches first uprising.
1972 | Ceylon changes name to Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka as an independent republic. Buddhism made official religion. Vellupillai Prabakaran forms the Tamil New Tigers.
1976 | Vaddukodai Resolution passed by Tamil politicians pledges the founding of an independent Tamil state. Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) formed, overtaking or doing away with other Tamil armed groups.
1978 | New (second) constitution brings in new presidential system, a powerful executive with six-year terms and new powers, and a proportional representation electoral system.
1979 | Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) brought in. Beginning of mass arrests of Tamil youth.
1981 | Burning of Jaffna library, a regional centre of Tamil culture and learning.
1983 | Mass anti-Tamil pogrom (Black July) following the ambush and killing of thirteen soldiers. More than 100,000 Tamils flee to India and more further abroad, in what is generally regarded as the beginning of open civil war (First Eelam War).
1985 | Talks between the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and LTTE in Butan. Attack on Anuradhapura (ancient capital and Buddhist sacred city) by Tamil militants kills over 140 Sinhalese civilians.
1986 | Attack on Air Lanka plane in Colombo itself.
1987 | Escalation of LTTE attacks followed by government Operation Liberation leading to an estimated 1,000 deaths and 2,000 arrests. Indo-Lankan Peace Accord signed. Some 50,000 Indian peacekeepers arrive in Jaffna to disarm LTTE and oversee implementation of the agreement, but this breaks down completely and they find themselves in open combat with the LTTE, who recapture Jaffna. Launch of second JVP uprising.
1990 | India withdraws. Civil war resumes in full with LTTE forcibly evicting over 70,000 Muslims from northern areas (Black October). Beginning of Second Eelam War.
1991 | LTTE suicide bomber blamed for assassination of Rajiv Ghandi.
1993 | President Premadasa killed by LTTE suicide bomber.
1995 | Government of Chandrika Kumaratunge and LTTE agree to talks which break down after an attack blowing up two navy vessels. Jaffna won back through Sri Lankan Army (SLA) attack.
1996 | Suicide bombing at Central Bank building in Colombo kills more than 100 and injures an estimated 1,400. LTTE attacks army camp in Mullaitivu, killing over 1,000 troops.
1999 | Attempted LTTE assassination of President Chandrika Kumaratunge, who survives.
2001 | Suicide attack on Colombo international airport.
2002 | Norwegian-brokered ceasefire agreement signed. GoSL and LTTE agree to talks.
2003 | LTTE withdraws from talks. Ceasefire still in place.
2004 | LTTE Colonel Karuna defects, creating split in the movement. Tsunami of 26 December kills some 30,000 and devastates coastal regions.
2005 | Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar killed by suspected LTTE attackers in Colombo. LTTE resumes claymore and grenade attacks in Jaffna peninsula. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa wins presidential elections in November.
2006 | GoSL responds to suicide attack on military compound in Colombo with air strikes in Tamil-controlled areas. European Union (EU) lists LTTE as a terrorist organisation and LTTE responds with the demand that European Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) members withdraw.
2007 | Non-resident Tamils forced to leave Colombo, but expulsions stopped by Supreme Court ruling in response to a Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) petition. SLA begins to recapture Tamil areas.
2008 | GoSL pulls out of ceasefire agreement formally. Full-scale offensive under way. International Independent Group of Experts (brought in by government to monitor human rights) leaves Sri Lanka citing interference with their work.
2009 | President Rajapaksa takes over media ministry, Kilinochchi falls to SLA, a private television station is attacked in Colombo, and Sinhalese editor Lasantha Wickremetunga is assassinated after writing a letter predicting his death by government forces. 'No fire zones' announced but plight of civilians trapped in the northern battle zone draws increasing international attention. Colonel Karuna is made Minister for National Integration and Reconciliation. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights accuses both sides of war crimes. UN food convoys stopped. Norway officially dropped as peace facilitator. In May, victory is declared over the LTTE and Prabhakaran killed when attempting to flee. Ban Ki-moon visits Colombo and secures joint statement with Rajapaksa about post-war recovery. Permanent People's Tribunal Dublin proceedings find that war crimes were committed.
2010 | Presidential mandate secured through elections. Rajapaksa brought back with 57 per cent of the vote to opponent Fonseka's 40 per cent. Fonseka arrested and put on trial. Ruling coalition secures landslide win in parliamentary elections. Eighteenth amendment abolishes limit on number of terms for the Executive Presidency. UN Secretary-General appoints Panel of Experts on Sri Lanka. Rajapaksa announces Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). Inaugural sessions of provisional Transitional Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) held in Philadelphia, USA. EU suspends GSP plus (General System of Preferences).
2011 | Panel of Experts issues report calling for investigation into evidence of war crimes at end of war. LLRC issues its own report. Rajapaksa welcomed to Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) held in Perth.
2012 | UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Resolution 19/2 calls for LLRC recommendations to be implemented and calls for action plan and for UN Human Rights Commissioner to work with GoSL on seeing through proposals.
2013 | UNHRC Resolution 22/1 calls upon Sri Lanka to conduct independent investigation into alleged violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. Tamil National Alliance (TNA) wins first elections to Northern Provincial Council with 78 per cent of the vote. CHOGM meeting hosted by Sri Lanka. Chief Justice impeached and replaced by presidential appointee. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay visits Sri Lanka.
2014 | UNHRC Resolution 25/1 calls on Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to undertake a comprehensive investigation into alleged serious violations and abuses of human rights and related crimes, due to report back in March 2015. Permanent People's Tribunal Bremen finds evidence of war crimes. Rajapaksa says UN investigating team will not be allowed entry.
2015 | Sirisena defeats Rajapaksa in January elections. Global Tamil Forum (GTF) speaks out in favour of new administration with hope for reform measures. Northern Provincial Council passes resolution on genocide, declaring no confidence in government-led efforts to investigate war crimes. OHCHR report delayed to September when UNHRC Resolution 30/1 outlines recommendations on reconciliation, accountability and human rights and requests GoSL to cooperate with special mandate holders and international assistance on these steps. Civil society invited by new government to join in measures for reconciliation and constitutional reform.
2016 | June UNHRC oral report delivered by the High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, who cites mixed progress on 30/1 recommendations, notes that PTA still in place, and that there is ongoing need for consultations on missing persons. In Sri Lanka, the potential role of foreign judges in any criminal proceedings remains contested, refuted by government. July sees celebrations of sixty years of diplomatic relations between Sri Lanka and China and sixty-five years since the Rubber–Rice pact.
2017 | High Commissioner due to issue final report on implementation of 2015 resolution.
FOREWORD
There is a widespread impression that all is well in Sri Lanka, and that it is a trouble-free and pristine tourist destination. News from the small island nation is continually defused by reports of desperate conditions of conflict, displacement, suffering and despair from other regions. This book explores the conduct of the Rajapaksa government in its ten years of power and examines how it contributed to past and ongoing tensions between counterterrorism and human rights compliance. As these tensions came in sharp focus within the country, international diplomacy failed in upholding basic rules of war and a new global consensus emerged in which the defeat of terrorism justified the means.
The author draws on encounters with Sri Lankans from many walks of life, asking them questions about the kind of society they want and the relationship of their country to a wider world community. The country's patchy human rights record, with its litany of enforced disappearances and extra-judicial executions, provides an unsettling backdrop to these conversations. This book examines the history and context within which an abuse of state power occurs, by interrogating the foundations of a particular government's entrenchment, including the majoritarian unitary state, the role of the executive, the justifications for increased military spending and the prominence of the military accompanied by the need for visibility. There is equally a recognition of the areas of reform and the acute need to bring in meaningful peace.
The Sirisena government faces new and old challenges. There is a shift in gear, yet the long-standing need to allow representation and inclusion has not been comprehensively addressed. Real peacebuilding requires the transformation of structures, interests, power and relationships. This cannot be achieved if archaic and authoritarian structures of state power are still in place or reinforced by new pieces of legislation. The new government promised to do away with the oppressive structures of the past. This book is a reminder why it needs to live up to its promise.
Charu Lata Hogg
Michael D. Palm fellow, Williams Institute, UCLA Law
Associate fellow, Chatham House
MAP OF SRI LANKA
INTRODUCTION
Reflections on 'optics': Sri Lanka and dilemmas in the study of violence and global governance
In January 2015, a government fell in Sri Lanka, with elections ousting President Mahinda Rajapaksa in what many saw as a 'shock defeat' (BBC 2015). The enormity of the election outcome was greeted with surprise and relief by many observers who had feared that a third term for Mr Rajapaksa would have robbed Sri Lanka's democracy of whatever little vigour was left in it (Uyangoda 2015). In spite of an astrologer's prediction and perhaps an over-reliance on believing that the state security apparatus would come to his aid to overturn an unfavourable result, Rajapaksa was out and a former colleague was in. The new President Sirisena chose as his Prime Minister a man who had been associated with ill-fated peace attempts in a civil war that ended in military victory (and mass atrocity) instead. With parliamentary elections the following summer confirming a narrow majority, the country was set on some kind of new trajectory, scarred by war and unfinished political business in terms of majority/minority relations that has been unresolved for decades.
For a country characterised by peaceful, incremental political transition from colonial to independent status, Sri Lanka's (then Ceylon's) postcolonial experience entailed considerable internal violence and bitter socio-political cleavages. An anti-state uprising took place in 1953; race riots in 1958; the first Janathā Vimukthi Peramun.a (People's Liberation Front, the JVP) insurgency in 1971. State repression was experienced both in the South, against the JVP, and in the North and East against the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Elam (LTTE), aided by the use of extraordinary laws such as the Public Security Ordinance and the Prevention of Terrorism Act. While the 1983 killings of Tamils marked 'one of the most horrendous incidents' in post-independence history, the upsurge in violence against both Sinhalese and Tamils by government forces by the late 1980s resulted in such high numbers of deaths and disappearances that at that time Sri Lanka registered the second-highest number of cases of involuntary disappearances in the world, next only to Iraq (Pinto-Jayawardena 2015). The JVP had struck at the heart of the state, targeting state employees, officials, their families, even opposition figures who would not follow the call to take up arms. Formal and informal counter-insurgency methods were developed during both the JVP and Tamil uprisings. Sri Lankan security forces were given almost unlimited powers to combat both, which included shooting suspects on sight and disposing of bodies without an inquest. These were civil wars known for 'taking no prisoners'. The JVP insurgency, the LTTE insurgency and the United National Party (UNP) government's counter-insurgency war were all defining events that remain deeply embedded in the collective memory and experience of violence. Into this must be factored three decades of civil war that 'provided the space, as well as contexts, for multiple agents of terror, violence and death to practice their vocation freely and to chilling effect'.
At the same time, the Sri Lankan polity has distinguished itself, seemingly out of proportion to its size as an island entity, as an actor in international relations and in the development of systems that came to be known as part of institutional global governance. Since independence in 1948, Sri Lanka has contributed to the United Nations (UN) system in multiple ways, including its norm-setting process. Present in San Francisco at the Japan peace conference in 1951, Sri Lankan delegates pleaded that Japan should be integrated into the world community with dignity, with J. R. Jayawardene (Finance Minister at the time) arguing against crippling reparations and for supported full recovery. Sri Lanka has produced important UN professionals, including three Under-Secretary-Generals and a Vice President of the International Court of Justice, to name a few. These and other high-level officials have played a strong role in international development by influencing global policy through leadership in diverse areas, ranging from the law of the sea to disarmament, children in armed conflict, and climate change. Jayantha Dhanapala was appointed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to take on the role of Under-Secretary-General and re-establish the Department of Disarmament after the UN reforms of 1997. Radhika Coomaraswamy served in distinguished capacities, including as Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Under-Secretary-General for Children in Armed Conflict. Thousands of Sri Lankan citizens have served in UN peacekeeping efforts around the world. At the time of writing, over 1,000 troops are deployed to missions in Haiti, South Sudan and the Central African Republic (Nandy 2015).
This book looks primarily at one ten-year period (2005–15) of political machinations on the part of a particular government in power during and following a bitter civil war – a decade chosen for several reasons. Among these are the residual resonance of the post-2009 so-called 'Sri Lankan model' throughout the region, if not more widely; the shifting normative and power balances on the international stage that provide its backdrop; the resounding rejection of an already declining 'liberal peace' international interventionist mode; and the realisation that the military solution undertaken has not meant the demise of a minority's aspirations or needs amid what is actually a long-running crisis of the postcolonial state. It is precisely this intersection of local and global levels of agency and influence that will inform the choices and the pathways that Sri Lankans take in their own way. The central theme of the book may be articulated in three questions:
• | What was the trajectory of the Rajapaksa government in winning the war against the LTTE and seeking to establish a renewed unitary state?
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• | How did the government deal with international actors and norms, as well as internal opposition to the nature of the military defeat and the illiberal measures chosen for post-war recovery?
• | What, if any, mitigating circumstances and conditions can be identified that are relevant to notions of 'global governance' that have had an impact on Sri Lankan politics and society?
It will assist exploration of the questions above if we first expand on requisite 'optics' to the themes of both global governance and illiberal peacebuilding.
Global governance: contested frameworks of understanding
Globalisation and global governance are not the same thing, but they are closely interlinked in terms of process and theory. Hofferberth (2015) notes that the report of the 1995 Commission on Global Governance echoed and reinforced the notion of globalisation by referring to a 'global neighbourhood'. With regard to globalisation, Vaughan (2011) offers a graphic picture:
Contemporary world politics is shaped by centripetal and centrifugal forces. At the same time that globalisation is pulling many of the planet's inhabitants together, fragmenting processes are pushing people apart. The world is simultaneously becoming more cosmopolitan and more parochial. Powerful non-state actors now vie with sovereign states. Intricate patterns of transnational exchange compete with emotional ties of national identity. Nation-states are enmeshing with complex networks of transnational governance that include corporations, banks, and intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations. In sum, the world today is being shaped by forces that challenge the Westphalian state-centric view of international politics.
Global governance has been defined very simply as 'e]fforts to bring more orderly and reliable responses to social and political issues that go beyond the capacity of states to address individually' (Gordenker and Weiss cited in [Dingwerth and Pattberg 2006). According to this view, global governance is seen as functioning through transnational institutions and interests that carry authoritative weight for decision making and actions by actors more or less beyond the full control of individual state governments. The machinations of Rajapaksa then reflect a classic tension between a claim of state sovereignty versus transnational demands and pulls. It is a mode of influence that may be exercised through state cooperation and through public sector actors, but also through non-state actors, be they civil or market-driven, in the form of deregulated economic penetration. Pascal Lamy observes that global governance grew through international cooperation over the past century and a half, underpinned by the treaties and agreements through which state entities have gradually agreed to renounce portions of their sovereignty. Comprising both formal institutions such as the UN system and Bretton Woods Institutions, and informal structures including the G5, G7, G8 and now G20, global governance emerges as a discernible system that has taken a 'few small steps away from state sovereignty and the "security blanket" of the Westphalian system' (Lamy 2015). He also acknowledges that the ideological infrastructure of global governance, while not exclusively derived from the Washington Consensus, was produced in the West and reflects the development of globalised market capitalism and a political system of liberal democracies.
Some see the peak of globalisation as having been in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a time period that would encompass the beginnings of Sri Lanka's short-lived but heavily internationalised 'peace process'. Abdelal and Katz (2014: 133) look over the past few decades as a transition from deteriorating international unipolarity to emergent multipolarity, with accompanying ideational challenges and political backlashes. This is in keeping with the notion of a 'neo-Westphalian' world, a condition of renewed importance for both sovereignty and religion, with a decline or rollback of universal norms about human rights (Hopgood 2013: 166). Sri Lanka's rolling back of a once promising democracy and the persistent rise of militant political Buddhism provide a compelling case study in this light. It remains the case, however, that throughout the previous long years of conflict the Sri Lankan government remained an active member of the international community and is a signatory of numerous international charters, conventions and protocols, such as the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (Crawley et al. 2015: 9), under which there are commitments and obligations. To all intents and purposes, Sri Lanka may be seen as having been an active participant in systems of global governance. The broad meaning of the term can be taken from the many-layered definition below (Thakur et al. 2014: 1–2) and further refined accordingly:
Global governance entails multilevel and networked relations and interactions for managing and facilitating linkages across policy levels and domains. It consists of formal and informal arrangements that provide more order and stability for a world in constant and rapid flux than would occur naturally – the range of international cooperation without a world government. Intensifying global interdependence, growing recognition of problems that defy solutions by a single state or organization, and increasing numbers and importance of nonstate actors have all contributed to the growth of global governance as an analytical framework...
The content of global governance embraces the totality of laws, norms, policies, and institutions that define, constitute, and mediate relations between citizens, societies, markets, and states in the international system – the wielders and objects of the exercise of international public power. The architecture of global governance is made up of formal international organizations with the UN system as the core of the organized multilateral order, formal regional and subregional organizations, and informal general-purpose groupings. The most visible example of the latter in recent times is the Group of 20 (G20) heads of state or government, but these groupings also include the old Group of 7 (G7) and the new Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) groupings of the industrialized and emerging market economies, and even informal but functionally specific and single-problem-oriented institutions like the Proliferation Security Initiative and the Nuclear Security Summits, as well as transnational networks of civil society and market actors.
Led by interests and values, based on elements of international law and the UN charter, global governance encompasses an active web of networked formal and informal relationships: multilevel relations and networks that link policy levels and states. Critics of the emphasis on international cooperation and regulation point to the need to understand power and control mechanisms, illustrated in analytical developments over the past decade of work on 'governmentality'. Lo Schiavo suggests that the Foucauldian concept of governmentality contributed to the development of a critical approach in studies on governance, one that 'unveils' the spirit in the machine of governance arrangements:
The concept of governmentality is defined by Foucault in these terms: 'the ensemble formed by institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, the calculations and tactics that allow the exercise of this very specific albeit complex form of power, which has as its target population, as its principal form of knowledge political economy, and as its essential technical means apparatuses of security.' (Foucault 1991: 102, quoted in Lo Schiavo 2014: 187)
This study of the Rajapaksa decade and Sri Lanka's emergent confrontation with its recent past is thus centred along the lines of the informing conditions for national government per se: historical precedent, structures and dominant ethos; cognitive and technical elements in the 'mentality' of the regime; the practices of social and repressive control employed; and the cross-currents of connections between internal and external actors. Many of those who resisted the regime looked to international norms and institutions for widening support and leveraging influence. They sought transactional power, or possibility, through the ability to bypass the state centre and bring influence to bear from external sources. In the sphere of mobilisation, then, global governance was taken as 'something more practical: the collective effort by sovereign states, international organizations, and other non-state actors to address common challenges and seize opportunities that transcend national frontiers' (Stewart 2014). In the same year as the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) victory over the LTTE, Hongying Wang and James Rosenau (2009: 6) wrote on 'China and global governance', noting the following:
Global governance, as it is commonly understood today, has three distinctive features. First, the term highlights the global scale of many of the world's pressing issues, such as economic interdependence, migration, financial crises, drug trafficking, environmental degradation, and various health pandemics. Second, it emphasizes that while governments continue to perform important functions, non-state entities have become significant actors in making demands, issuing directives, and pursuing policies, thus shaping how the world is governed. Third, it presumes a number of norms of 'good governance' rooted in Western experience, such as market competition, human rights, democracy, transparency, accountability and rule of law.
This book is geared in particular to the second and third points above. Moreover, it is situated clearly in a multi-polarising world period in which those norms of governance are being challenged in processes in which previously understood Western-driven neoliberal hegemony is in decline. In a post-post-Cold War era, the behaviours of the Rajapaksa regime demonstrate and are representative of international fluctuations, although it will be seen that the official Sri Lankan justifications for military action were couched in familiar language such as self-defence, humanitarian action, and counter-terrorism. Increasingly, the role and legitimacy of the UN and the efficacy of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law are contested openly and at times brazenly. While it is evident that power has not passed from nation-states to international organisations and global institutions, Sri Lanka is compelling because of the interplay between government and international authority, while at the same time there is a marked attempt at counterbalancing power relations 'from below' through Sri Lankan social movements and civil actors, often in alliance with their counterparts in other states.
Illiberal peacebuilding
In his own penetrating study of global governance, Duffield located strategic complexes within the liberal project, 'nodes of authority' enmeshing international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), governments, militaries, international financial institutions (IFIs), private security companies and businesses in the pursuit of global security (Duffield 2014 [2001]: 12). He particularly stressed the reinvention of development policy, with conflict resolution central to its radicalisation – a radicalisation made all the more striking through its almost all-encompassing endorsement by an expanding network of global governance.
Comprised of NGOs, agencies, military coalitions, international financing institutions, and donor governments, the goal of the network of global governance... was the establishment of 'liberal peace': one that resolves conflict, reconstructs societies, and establishes functioning market economies as a way of avoiding future war. (Harmer 2014)
It could be argued that the Rajapaksa government turned the table on systemic leanings towards stabilisation of the borderlands, instrumentalising aid and setting terms and conditions for Western agency work in Sri Lanka. The theme ceased to be liberal peace and became illiberal conquest.
From the end of the war with the LTTE through military defeat in May 2009, the Sri Lankan government rejected the norms of liberal peace, vehemently refusing offers of UN good offices and claiming frequently to be turning Eastward rather than relying on previous allies and alliances in the West. Sri Lanka under Rajapaksa's rule is not the first country to engage in what has been 'illiberal peacebuilding', described by Soares de Oliveira (2011) as:
a process of post-war reconstruction managed by local elites in defiance of liberal peace precepts on civil liberties, the rule of law, the expansion of economic freedoms and poverty alleviation, with a view to constructing a hegemonic order and an elite stranglehold over the political economy.
Rwanda and Eritrea are often cited in this respect; Soares de Oliveira's study is of Angola, and he also refers to Rafik Hariri's Lebanon rebuilding under Syrian influence. But post-war Sri Lanka seemed Janus-like, simultaneously straddling both its own proud internal imposition of victorious Sinhala Buddhist hegemony and a craving for recognition and acceptance from the Western powers and interests it claimed to eschew. Anything the 'international community' wanted in terms of recovery or reconciliation, the GoSL would do in its own way, sans assistance. If technical or humanitarian aid were to be accepted, it would be on the government's terms. Symbolic forms and language to do with justice, devolution and inclusion resonated inside as well as outside the country, but were issued in a climate of repression and centralised control. Internal mechanisms were designed to the letter in instrumentalist legal formations, but failed to deliver as part of what one observer privately called 'Sri Lanka's "rich and lurid history" of national commissions of enquiry'. And yet the question arose as to whether replication, diffusion, and even political theatre might be rehearsals for the real thing. This would be the challenge to the post-Rajapaksa era.
It should be noted that alongside scholarship on liberal and illiberal peace there has also been a vocal analysis of 'hybrid' peace, which gives credence to the blend of indigenous process and form with liberal tenets and assumptions: democratisation, human rights, rule of law, market economy and neoliberal incorporation. Höglund and Orjuela (2012) examine both hybrid peace governance and illiberal peacebuilding in the Sri Lankan context with particular reference to social and political divides. They describe the Colombo anti-UN demonstrations of 1 May 2011, when effigies of the Secretary-General were burned and placards showing the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, Libya, Russia and China were paraded under the banner 'For New World Order'. There is, they acknowledge, 'no clear-cut mix of international liberal and local illiberal' (ibid.: 90). In a more recent analysis, Nadarajah and Rampton (2015) point to the limits of hybridity, arguing cogently that social and political justice cannot be programmed from above but must emerge through agency and localised struggle.
Sri Lanka and global governance
The Rajapaksa pursuit of military victory at all costs – what some have deemed Sri Lankan exceptionalism (DeVotta 2015: 211) – also raises questions about the agency of small states in the wider and changing system. David Lewis (2010: 660) points to the shifting nature of norms and the promotion of counter-narratives, the fact that norms are not fixed or static but highly contested:
Although this process of contestation reflects shifting power relations, and the increasing influence of China, Russia and other 'Rising Powers', it does not mean that small states are simply the passive recipients of norms created and contested by others. In fact, Sri Lankan diplomats have been active norm entrepreneurs in their own right, making significant efforts to develop alternative norms of conflict management, linking for example Chechnya and Sri Lanka in a discourse of state-centric peace enforcement.
There is evidence that some in the leadership saw things in this way, and the question warrants further exploration. Deftly drawing on a statement of support from the 118-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in early 2010, Permanent Representative to the UN Palitha Kohona declared that Sri Lanka was resisting external pressure in the management of its internal affairs (objecting to the Secretary-General's Panel of Experts) and that the perception of Sri Lanka being singled out for harsh treatment must be avoided (IPS 2010). Defence seminars held in Colombo after the war presented Sri Lanka as a world leader in counter-insurgency and conflict termination.
For the five years following the end of war, Sri Lanka appeared to be a state clearly still at odds with a significant portion of its population (both domestically and in relation to a politically sophisticated diaspora) while also in conflict with Western states and international norms. The country's trajectory revealed a marked difference between state building and peacebuilding and was indicative of the residual relevance of geo-politics, the potential strength of small states in the face of 'global governance', and the resilience of alternative international networks for reciprocity, reinforcement and exchange. The GoSL could turn away from the US and EU to China, India, Iran and Pakistan for affirmation and resources.
The Rajapaksa government seemed to want to be inside the international community and at the same time totally outside it and unencumbered by it. There are certain contradictions in its position, which warrant scrutiny. Firstly, the enterprise of the LTTE arose from a wellspring of Tamil grievances that were themselves based on constitutional rights and (originally) notions of inclusion in the Sri Lankan state, which then led to demands for a separate state. The very grounds for grievance seemed to be airbrushed away after the war under the rubric of the defeat of terrorism. In this sense, human rights were not an imposed Western agenda, but a need, a claim and a rationale for Sri Lankans. Secondly, it is not only 'liberal peace' paradigms that call for conciliation or the demonstration of mercy after war. Nigeria after the Biafran War is a case in point where the political refrain of 'No Victor, No Vanquished' informed outreach to and inclusion of the Igbo people who had also fought on a platform of self-determination. This was due to Nigerian leadership, with no reference to the UN or to external authorities or norms. Thirdly, the religion of Buddhism (in Sri Lanka, Theravada Buddhism is the state religion) is often understood as having central tenets that include compassion (Tambiah 1992; E. J. Harris 2005; Bhikkhu 1999). But then major world religions, when linked to state power, seem to prove amenable to mobilisation and multiple interpretations.
Contemporary wars and zones of political violence are frequently characterised by postcolonial state crisis, competing claims of minorities, interventionist interests, counter-insurgency measures, elite power bids and regional dynamics. In the aftermath of the Cold War, the doctrines and practice of global governance have been closely intertwined with political and economic neoliberal reform agendas, privileging certain actors, ideas, values and interest groups over others. Sri Lanka's political trajectory was informed by the strains of such reform measures, and their effects on the contestation of the state. While this book will show how a particular government style under the Rajapaksas sought to reject international normative interference, there were also formal and informal systems at work inside and outside Sri Lanka that in turn actively opposed him in his project. As Cochrane, Duffy and Selby argued in their seminal work Global Governance, Conflict and Resistance (2003), the characterisation of global governance and resistance as binary opposites is problematic; they may be viewed as inextricably interlinked forces that, through their synthesis, form a process, or overlapping and intertwined processes, to do with sites of power.
This tension acts in several intersecting ways that are relevant to Sri Lanka's trajectory, not only during its civil war but also in light of constitutional and economic reform measures set against a particular postcolonial experience. The frequent tendency to limit the internal lens of examination only to 'unitary state versus LTTE' reifies two particular nationalisms and denies the complexities of actors, social groups and dynamics within the polity, and their disparate but dynamic quest for a social contract. In our context of a globalised world, it is noteworthy that, in the aftermath of the defeat of the LTTE in 2009, there arose a Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam – not a government in exile as per historical precedents, but a functioning virtual body with international membership and representation. Over the past two decades, the world system has undergone fundamental shifts in power relations between states and the reorientation of 'North' and 'South' through the rise of India, Brazil, China and others, with an attendant pursuit (through BRICS summits) of systemic legitimacy for a new global order. Emerging powers have leveraged market capitalism and new communications technology to achieve economic and social development at high speeds and levels, while they are less inclined to accept a cosmopolitan political or normative space, much less any erosion of often hard-won sovereignty. At the same time, in both North and South, there is no reduction in inequality, and financial crisis lends itself to new forms of instability. The very location of Sri Lanka has rendered it a prime crossroads for related influence and change: an axis of East–West geo-political pulls vis-à-vis China and the US.
We can also turn to the personal, the individual level, when considering global governance and Sri Lanka. Jani de Silva (2005) conducted a detailed investigation of a case during the JVP uprising in which schoolboys were abducted and found murdered in a small village in southern Sri Lanka. The victims were neither insurgents nor suspected insurgents, but it was thought that they had been taken by the Sri Lankan military. Amnesty International highlighted the disappearances in October 1991, leading to questions being raised in parliament and a denial from the UNP government that the boys had ever been held in custody. The parents' group, however, was summoned to the Presidential Secretariat and told that there would be an investigation. This was not immediately forthcoming, but in a communication to the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances in 1992, the UNP government exonerated all the schoolboys of any involvement with the JVP. At that stage, Sri Lankan government cooperation with an institution of global governance, a UN body, related directly to the individual parents involved. Between its 1980 establishment and 2006, the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances transmitted 12,319 cases to the Sri Lankan government. Field missions were undertaken in 1991, 1992 and 1999. In 6,570 cases the fate of the missing was established due to cooperation between government, NGOs and other relevant intergovernmental organisations in the field, as well as assisted searches by family and workers visiting from the UN.
It was also the case that elements of global governance later worked to Rajapaksa's favour. In May 2006, when he was newly elected, the Council of the EU listed LTTE as a terrorist organisation, leading to blanket restrictive measures and bans on travel and financial transfers. The Council's statement indicated that by such an action they hoped to push the LTTE back to negotiations. The GoSL was also urged to clamp down on the use of violence and address a culture of impunity. While this EU measure had a marked effect on LTTE fundraising capacity, the 'terrorist' label also offered the incoming Rajapaksa government a justification to start a fully fledged war against the LTTE. 'For terrorists, in the post 9/11 meaning of the term, are people... with whom you do not negotiate' and 'who need to be flushed out of their holes'; in the discursive context of the 'war on terror, labeling an organization as terrorist in order to push it to the negotiation table is, at best, paradoxical' (Demmers 2012: 126).
Chapter outlines
The first chapter revisits the nature of the war's end in Sri Lanka, its co-option of war on terror discourse and official vehement denials of civilian casualties, and then contrasts competing models for post-war recovery. It interrogates why, with a dominant interest in economic regeneration and 'take-off' as the 'Wonder of Asia', the Rajapaksa government was so concerned to forestall and block opinion and visiting missions from the UN that it designed its own approach to reconciliation through a government mechanism. Chapter 1 also explores the application and ramifications of the 'Sri Lankan model'; the extent of unfinished business internally; and the potential and limits of stabilisation approaches to post-war recovery.
Chapter 2 begins to unpack the prevailing conditions for post-war decision making, directives and political trajectory through the unitary state and executive presidency; and the extent to which structures and mechanisms were ingrained in Sri Lankan history and how they were used to counter demand for a settlement to the national question. In Chapter 3, the notion and practice of non-interference, Sri Lankan style, is explored. This involved planning for both blockage and counter-hegemonic diplomacy in Geneva and New York, support from non-Western allies and considerable investment in opinion shaping and public relations. Internally, dissident voices were silenced or made targets as threats to the integrity of the state, while limits were placed on the ultimate degree of control given to transnational networks and international links. Chapter 4 seeks to understand the dynamics between government and external actors: 'the outsiders', which includes both internationals working in-country and donor agendas preceding and during the abortive ceasefire and the return to war. It asks what role international aid architecture played in shaping attitudes, as well as why Sri Lankan NGOs themselves became targets in fraught confrontations over political futures. The relative failures of UN structures – and the subsequent interrogation of those failures – are relevant in this exploration.
Chapter 5 questions whether and how Sri Lankan majoritarianism has been understood as a counterforce to inclusive reform, examining the instrumentalisation of identity politics, threat and mobilisation. This is linked with often recognised 'divide and rule' measures in party politics, social relations, and the demographic military, socio-economic and cultural occupation of the North and East. In Chapter 6, the call for 'home-grown solutions' is interrogated, insofar as dispersed communities and the diaspora also saw Sri Lanka as 'home'; regional interests and attention from global institutions were brought to bear on key problems and needs, as articulated by war survivors, political activists and human rights actors. Particular scrutiny is given to whether the Human Rights Council in Geneva became a vehicle for activating internal 'regime change', or at least for raising the game on moves towards political settlement. Lastly, Chapter 7 rounds off with Sri Lanka as a small state in a large system, highlighting patterns of action, reaction and change over the past decade, the role of international actors and the geo-politics of US/China/India relations. It looks at the implications from the Sri Lankan experience for developing understandings of the dynamics of global governance and for querying networks of pressure, legitimacy and action in a changing international system.
Some caveats
Sunil Bastian is one scholar whose work connects the post-1977 era in Sri Lanka to a new, liberalised phase of globalised capitalist developments:
These processes have external and internal dimensions. The intensification of the global linkages and the influence of institutions of global governance in Sri Lankan affairs are two external dimensions... since the external and internal are intricately linked it is difficult to understand Sri Lankan social processes without taking into account the globalised context. (Bastian 2003: 14)
Bastian warns against the ideological myopia of liberalism, which can mean always viewing the historical evolution of developing societies through the prism of Western capitalist societies, and highlights the need to examine what the French social scientist Bayart called the 'distinct historicity of societies'. Both these reminders are echoed here when exploring the linkage of civil war experience and its aftermath to global governance. There are particular caveats to such a focus. The first is respect for all those on the receiving end of violence in Sri Lanka, and the limitations of external enquiry in relation to internal lived experience. In short, 'all sides' have suffered loss. This means a degree of humility in recognising and honouring less than visible meanings and intimacies of the severe collective violence that has been part of Sri Lankan modern society, and the multiplicity of personal legacies and often unresolved experiences in this regard. Just as Paul Richards deconstructed the outsider view of a 'new barbarism' on the part of youth in Sierra Leone during the 1990s, and as Kalyvas documented in his monumental study on The Logic of Violence in Civil War, violence has long spilled beyond political agendas to kill individuals and destroy communities (Richards 1997; Kalyvas 2006; Volkan 1997). For outside observers and human rights activists, this violence has had a cruel, a vicious, even a vindictive nature. In her acute interrogation of the interplay of culture, history and personal dynamics as mentioned above, de Silva (2005) brought insights to a particular case of abduction and torture, refuting the notion of 'meaningless' or 'irrational' violence. As her story of abducted and tortured schoolboys reveals, both the anti-government and anti-JVP struggles were also used as cover for settling personal disputes. 'Terror tactics' fuelled their own replication in an atmosphere of social breakdown. 'Such acts remain transgressive,' she acknowledges, but they are frequently fraught with powerful and symbolic meanings, which need to be carefully extricated and made intelligible. Only then can we comprehend what was taking place in society (ibid.: 10). It has been estimated that over 40,000 lives were lost during the war between the state and the JVP armed revolutionary organisation (Samavarayake 2008: 282).
This takes us to the second caveat: many of the political actions and positions that feature between 2005 and 2015 have clear antecedents in Sri Lankan experience and need to be referenced or drawn in where possible as context – the 'then' that informs the 'now'. Take, for example, the insistence on Sinhalese dominance, from 'Sinhala only' policies that sparked Tamil disaffection to the persona projected by Mahinda Rajapaksa, hinting that he was the reincarnation of an ancient, legendary king. De Silva discerns acute influences from more than one wave of 'globalisation', which has both disrupted and shaped island society. Globalisation (which Appadurai calls a term for a world of disjunctive flows) produces problems that manifest themselves in intensely local forms but have contexts that are anything but local.
And across the centuries, Sinhala society has always been open to influences from without. The global has been a constant factor. Sri Lanka was often occupied by foreign invaders, remnants of whose armies stayed behind. 'Sinhalaness' has always been enriched by heteroglossia. Heteroglossia creates hybridities... All invading groups stamp upon the native peoples not only their cultural forms, but biological traits and characteristics through their progeny who were often a product of mixed cohabitations. (Appadurai 2001: 6)
But it was precisely in the face of such provocative hybridizations that internal consolidation was most provoked. It was the 'old' globalisation – or the West-European incursions – which were culturally and racially of such a radically different kind, that finally spurred on the defensive cultural renaissance of the late 19th century. Thus early Nationalists... also articulated the anxieties of cultural obliteration which plague many members of the Sinhala-speaking intelligentsia today, in almost identical terms. (De Silva 2005: 234)
If we look to history, we can also find examples of tolerance and Hindu–Buddhist accommodation in the earlier polity of the Kandyan Kingdom in an altogether different system, one that coexisted with Tamil-speaking Vanni chieftaincies of the North; there are also other ancient precedents (M. Roberts 2012; Wijeyeratne 2013: 69; Tambiah 1986; Stewart and Strachern 2002: 140–4). The topic of non-Westphalian models of the state will figure later in this book with reference to contemporary debates on political futures. For our immediate focus, more recent modern historical precedent is relevant. There is rich contemporary material in the public domain in the form of histories and film archives: for example, the June 1987 Granada TV documentary Island at War. This features an in-depth discussion of a reprisal attack on Tamil civilians (massacres of Sinhala citizens took place near Trincomalee in April 1987, killing 126, and in May in Colombo with an estimated 200 casualties). The occasion was 'Operation Liberation', an offensive launched to recapture a strip of land – the area of Vadamarachchi in the Jaffna peninsula – from the LTTE. Recorded interviews with the affected population on the ground have a familiar resonance: the army had dropped leaflets instructing civilians to seek safe shelter in a temple that was then bombed; there are accusations that firebombs were used, barrels filled with petrol but also mixed with a chemical that caused severe burns. Film shows women, children and elderly victims and it is reported that 'perhaps 300 innocent civilians' were killed. The government spokesperson counters with the position that only military targets were attacked. Leaflets were dropped in 2009 urging civilians to seek safety in a no-fire zone; subsequently, despite glaring evidence to the contrary, there was an official denial of civilian casualties.
The old film clip is resonant with aspects of modern globalisation. People at village level are interviewed and filmed about their version of an incident within the state carried out by state forces; this is presented to government representatives for comment; and in turn it is broadcast thousands of miles away to an external audience and with additional inputs from the groups who are contesting central government, namely EROS (Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students) and the LTTE.
Thirty years later the country would still be trying to come to terms with the manner in which the war ended, the declaration of 'no-fire zones' which were in turn fired upon, the full-frontal assault on LTTE forces and on humanitarian law, in the presence of internationals, on the screens of internationals, and spoken of in the corridors of power in the UN itself. These are dilemmas that will haunt many for years to come, and created a situation that prompted Palitha Kohona, the then Sri Lankan Permanent Representative to the UN, to state in 2009 that: 'Winners are never tried for war crimes.' He went on: 'If you look at the history of war crimes there isn't one instance where a winner of a war has ever been tried before a tribunal.' He spoke against a turbulent background in world affairs. International headlines in the winter of 2008–09 highlighted Israel's war in Gaza; war and social fragmentation continued in the Democratic Republic of Congo; and concern for conflict management mounted in the aftermath of Russia's dispute with Georgia over Ossetia and the campaigns of the Chechen War. The need for civilian protection during internal war was highlighted particularly with reference to Gaza, finding resonance in humanitarian circles and for campaigns to resolve disputes fuelled by identity needs and territorial claims (Kretzmer 2009). International media attention was given to the plight of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq Body Count entered its sixth year of documenting an ongoing death toll in Iraq.
Maithripala Sirisena emerged as the 'common candidate' in opposition to the Rajapaksa regime seemingly out of nowhere as a relative unknown in the high politics of Sri Lanka in late 2014. He campaigned vigorously against corruption, but also on platforms appealing mainly to the three-quarters Sinhalese majority on the island. His message clearly opposed any federal devolution of powers and maintained that the military presence in the North should continue. He also stated that he would not allow the Rajapaksas or military personnel to be put on trial internationally. One of his first actions on taking office was to request a six-month deferral of a forthcoming UN report on atrocities committed during and after the war, from 2002 to 2011. International Crisis Group analyst Alan Keenan noted that the climate of fear had altered dramatically, and that people could now openly voice views and opinions, and also that the President had moved quickly to pass a budget which addressed cost of living concerns. With diplomatic damage limitation under way, there was an almost audible sigh of relief in many Western capitals. It remained to be seen what political issues of substance inherited from the previous decade would be dealt with, and whether minority aspirations would remain of international interest and concern. It is this intersection of the local with the other, the national and international, that lends itself to the central theme of this book: namely, the relationship of Sri Lanka to global governance with regard to the legacy of a bitter war. In conclusion, this book is as much about local actors, the would-be interveners and the norm-carriers as about the Rajapaksa regime.
CHAPTER 1
War's end and competing models for recovery
Peace without unity, unity without reconciliation, and reconciliation without accountability. (Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu)
The way the war ended cast a legacy on its aftermath, and two models of recovery were advocated by those in power as a means to peace: namely, the Singapore model of economic development to make Sri Lanka the Wonder of Asia, and notions of reconciliation, as defined in government circles. The residual dilemma was the clash between these dominant approaches and the actual underlying causes of the war.
War to peace transitions may be understood through the prisms of resistance, accountability and that elusive term 'governance'. Resistance because civil war and its ending entail the reconfiguration of power relations and friction among and between societal actors; accountability because a population and its leaders need to come to terms in some way with the effects of violence and construct a viable narrative on which to begin again; and 'governance' in the sense of levels of norms and mechanisms to enable the renewed functioning of a given society. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam fought for over three decades in Sri Lanka, a bitter armed struggle in which ceasefires failed to hold and a degree of territorial control was achieved and then lost. This civil war arose from historical grievances over language rights, issues of land, higher education, employment and the socio-political status of the minority Tamil community.
War's end
In the aftershock of the military defeat of the LTTE in May 2009, a mixture of euphoria, anxiety and profound uncertainty seemed to grip the capital Colombo. The city was a grey and concrete labyrinth of military fortification: watchtowers, roadblocks, checkpoints, razor wire, enforced curfew and armed patrols. International media had reported for months about the northern assault: a frantic situation in the Vanni including entrapment and deprivation and attacks on thousands of civilians. In February, an interview with Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa aired on BBC appeared to condone attacks on hospitals if they were outside the official no-fire zone (Crawford 2009). Satellite imagery abounded of the full pincer effect of the assault, as well as rumours of additional satellite imagery held by US intelligence. What had been fever-pitch activity in embassy and mission corridors to find a ceasefire or halt to hostilities gave way to diplomatic numbness, while citizens were encouraged to celebrate a final victory over terrorism.
For over a quarter of a century, the veracity of the Tamil–Sinhala conflict had attracted considerable international attention and intervention attempts, from the Government of India (at considerable cost, with the related assassination of Rajiv Ghandi) to numerous relief and development NGOs dedicated to peace making, a process of Norwegian-brokered talks and the international donor community backing economic incentive packages, particularly in the wake of the 2004 tsunami. As the Petrie report would later observe, the UN's political engagement in Sri Lanka during the period from 2007 to the end of the conflict in May 2009 was consistently secondary to the efforts of other external actors (UN 2012). These included countries in the region, primarily India and China. Norway sponsored the Ceasefire Agreement, with the EU, Japan and the US joining a Co-Chair Group of States to coordinate financial contributions to Sri Lanka in support of the peace process. The UN was not invited to be a member of the Co-Chair Group.
The final determined government offensive of the war was launched in late 2008. International agencies were forced by official directive to relocate from the Vanni in September 2008, a time when hundreds of thousands were being displaced within this increasingly dangerous conflict zone (IDMC 2009). By January 2009, an editorial in The Economist was asking 'Where have all the people gone?' in reference to the deserted streets and destroyed buildings in Kilinochchi, once the showcase de facto capital city of the declared Tamil Eelam (The Economist 2009). The LTTE had lost the city, with thousands of families displaced into the district around Mullaitivu. A final offensive was under way under the rubric of counter-terrorism with a rejection of perceived half-way measures and compromise as per the Norwegian brokered (aborted) peace initiative. There was a total rejection of calls for a ceasefire as the final battle loomed in 2009. Rajapaksa was quoted as saying: 'They are trying to preach to us about civilians. I tell them to go and see what they are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan' (Revise 2009). It was widely reported that a quarter of a million civilians were trapped in a shrinking area of land, caught in the crossfire and suffering casualties as well. Rumours flew of a massacre of people who were not themselves combatants and had no exit possibility, later confirmed in the wake of the final battle (Weiss 2012).
In fact, Norwegian facilitation (Sorbo et al. 2011) had been accepted and tried not long after the advent of the US-led narrative on 'the war on terror', described in detail by Kleinfeld in 2003. Kleinfeld documents how both the People's Alliance Government and the Tamil Tigers of Tamil Eelam used the '9/11' lexicon 'associated with the U.S. attacks and early global response to brand their adversary as terrorist, to recode political and conflict narratives in September eleventh terms, and to indicate the appropriate scale and scope of the war' (Kleinfeld 2003). The future Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a US citizen, was living in California at the time of the Bush administration measures that echoed 'with us or against us' as an uncompromising stance (Montlake 2009). His official governmental website invoked geo-political analogies when referring to subsequent United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) war crimes investigations, stating that the:
Sri Lankan government should closely study the Iraq case. It should be a priority. The Iraq case presents an excellent opportunity to highlight the double standards adopted by those threatening to haul Sri Lanka up before an international war crimes tribunal on the basis that the local process lacked credibility. (MoD Sri Lanka 2014)
It was Gotabaya who warned ambassadors, news agencies and international NGOs of dire consequences if they were 'partisan' in their concern for the LTTE or made comments in support of their cause during the military ground offensive. As he singled out BBC journalists and the Swiss and German ambassadors for particular criticism, a joint statement was issued by five leading Sri Lankan bishops calling on both sides at war in the Vanni to keep civilians safe from the line of fire and calling on the government to invite the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and independent Tamil leaders to monitor and manage relief in the war zone. When the President met with Manmohan Singh in New Delhi in November 2008, the Indian Premier also called for restraint and presented a copy of a unanimous resolution passed by the Tamil Nadu state legislative assembly that called for an immediate ceasefire and resumption of negotiations (transCurrents 2008; Kelegama 2013).
Just seven years earlier it had been suggested that Sri Lanka had come 'to serve as a laboratory and showcase for liberal peacebuilding' (Höglund and Orjuela 2012: 94) when the country embarked on a path of third party facilitation to resolve the long-standing conflict with the LTTE. Now the picture changed to one of triumphant military victory, as video footage released on 18 May 2009 showed the bloodied body of the LTTE leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, after a violent all-out attack by the Sri Lankan military under the presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa (Saddlesmania 2009). Public statements from Colombo rejected notions from Western governments at the time that clemency should have been shown; moreover, civilian deaths were denied and Western interference decried, as a 'Look East' policy was revived with pride and defiance. According to UN documentation, approximately 40,000 civilians had been killed in the first five months of 2009, with an estimated 300,000 displaced in the Northern Province (UN 2011a). Most internally displaced persons (IDPs) were held at the Manik Farm, the government IDP centre located between Vavuniya and Mannar districts. It was not long before 'credible allegations' associated with the final stages of the war surfaced in a way that would only loom and grow for the next five years. The Panel of Experts mandated by the Secretary-General reported that 'between September 2008 and 19 May 2009, the Sri Lanka Army advanced its military campaign into the Vanni using large-scale and widespread shelling, causing large numbers of civilian deaths. This campaign constituted persecution of the population of the Vanni' (UN 2011b). This was in stark contrast to the government's framing of operations as a humanitarian rescue operation. Sri Lanka is party to the 1949 Geneva Conventions (but not to additional protocols) and saw accession to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 1997. But Mahinda Rajapaksa signalled that this 'small island state, 270 miles long and 150 wide as the crow flies' (Tambiah 1986), once a newly independent democracy with pride in a democratic constitution and parliamentary system, would stand up to liberal global norms and that his government alone knew what was best for its people – for all its people. At least its ruling elite did so, defiant in triumphalism, rejecting any question of means and ends and being particularly angered by press reports of diaspora Tamil protests across the world during the final days of what the UN Independent Review Panel would later refer to as 'carnage'. The same panel found that the LTTE was also guilty of severe human rights violations against civilians in the course of combat.
War's end, while a relief for many citizens, particularly in the South (where people had suffered decades of uncertainty and fear), left many minority communities in an initial state of shock. Its coverage was fraught with competing narratives and depictions. Was it heroic triumph or brutal bloodbath? 'We have liberated the whole country from LTTE terrorism,' Rajapaksa declared, addressing parliament in the Tamil language and stressing that the war 'was not waged against the Tamil people' (Weaver and Chamberlain 2009). To general Sinhalese euphoria in the South, a national holiday was proclaimed and the victory celebrations began. Meanwhile, a chasm of desperate proportions loomed between southern experience and what was happening in the North and East of the country. Overseas Tamil diaspora groups mourned and in many cases protested, as in London, where frantic demonstrations led to violence outside the Houses of Parliament. Speculation resumed on 'what next' for post-war recovery.
An article in the Indian Defence Review concluded that in the final analysis the Rajapaksa model was based on a military precept and not a political one: 'terrorism has to be wiped out militarily and cannot be tackled politically. That's the basic premise of the Rajapakse Model.' The writer went further to argue that the first principle in the Rajapaksa model was political will and 'the second principle of Rajapakse's "how to fight a war and win it" is telling the international community to go to hell', as the British and French foreign ministers, David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner, found out during their visit. They were cold-shouldered for suggesting that Sri Lanka should halt the war and negotiate with the LTTE (Shashikumar 2009). As late as five years later Mohammad Ali Babakhel was widely quoted from an article published in a national Pakistani newspaper saying that Sri Lankan forces' all-out onslaught against the Tamil Tigers can be replicated in Pakistan against the Islamist rebels. 'The Sri Lankan strategy shows that with military might and popular support the state can defeat insurgents,' Babakhel said in his opinion piece. 'If the Sri Lankan] model cannot be replicated, at least it can be a source of inspiration [for Pakistan]' ([Daily Mirror 2014). Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi commended Sri Lanka on its success in defeating terrorism and reiterated China's support for maintaining Sri Lankan independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty – and also for supporting 'One China' with regard to Taiwan and Tibet (Asian Tribune 2009).
Winning the war and winning the peace: constitutional reform and devolution
There was, however, some residual hope for the political following the military, and the stated national agenda in the immediate post-war period seemed promising. For many observers, 'the defeat of the LTTE secessionist insurgency in 2009 provided the government with an unprecedented opportunity to move in the direction of ethnic reconciliation, constitutional reform for greater democratization, and enhanced regional autonomy for ethnic minorities' (Uyangoda 2011a). The President stated: 'Our intention was to save the Tamil people from the cruel grip of the LTTE. We all must now live as equals in this free country... we must find a homegrown solution to this conflict. That solution should be acceptable to all the communities' (Weaver and Chamberlain 2009). There was some hope that, at a minimum, a demoralised Tamil population would be offered something in the form of a '13th plus', a reference to a constitutional amendment intended to devolve power to provincial councils. This measure was introduced to create provincial councils as a follow-up action to the Indo–Sri Lanka Agreement of 1987 in order to devolve powers to the Tamil majority North and East (Senadhira 2013).
Now Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh emphasized the acute need to address the resettlement of IDPs, and urged the government to undertake speedy rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts in northern and eastern Sri Lanka. Singh underlined the need for meaningful devolution, based on the thirteenth amendment that would create the necessary conditions for lasting political settlement. It was widely reported that Sri Lanka had given assurances to India during talks between Rajapaksa and Manmohan Singh (and subsequently to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon) that the government would go beyond the thirteenth amendment to devolve substantial powers to Tamil majority areas. Rajapaksa announced that his government was committed to a political solution. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), as the largest political group representing the Sri Lankan Tamil community, dropped its demand for a separate state and advocated for dialogue and meaningful federal solutions. Supporters of the government encouraged it to take steps towards reconciliation and the rebuilding of trust between Sri Lanka's three major ethnic communities: Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims. There were also calls for the government to investigate the allegations of serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law by both sides in the final stages of the war and to establish at least some degree of accountability.
In the course of the thirty-year protracted war, a negotiated settlement had been continuously pursued and pushed by interlocutors and the donor community. 'Reconciliation' became a loaded term, just as the word 'federalism' was so highly charged that it became almost taboo. The resumption of the war had 'made reconciliation synonymous with defeatism in the majority psyche, and an elusive goal for the minority' (Thaheer et al. 2013). Post-victory, the Sri Lankan government would regard reconciliation as almost synonymous with reconstruction and the maintenance of stability. And the first priority was to consolidate the regime. Rajapaksa called for presidential elections in November 2009, some two years ahead of schedule, in order to secure an indisputable majority and capitalise on his post-war popularity. Ironically, his main challenger was former colleague and General Sarath Fonseka, who campaigned on a platform of restoration of democratic rights, polling well among Tamil and Muslim voters. Rumours flew when presidential candidate Fonseka was routed in his attempts at political opposition in 2010, then imprisoned after claims that he held evidence of war crimes and was prepared to go public. It was increasingly clear that the President would not look backwards but instead would focus on a march forwards that was to have no detractors. His emphasis was on reconstruction and infrastructure development as the path to the future for an economically vibrant Sri Lanka, an 'Emerging Wonder of Asia'. Then, in an interview for Indian television, Defence Secretary Gotabaya resoundingly refuted any prospect of a political solution:
Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa's comments, made in the course of an interview to Headlines Today television, reveal a troubling contempt for the Tamil minority. He has trashed 'the political solution talk,' asserting, among other things, that it was 'simply irrelevant' because 'we have ended this terrorism in Sri Lanka, making the egregious assertion that when the 13th Amendment was being drafted, 'the government of Sri Lanka was not involved.' (The Hindu 2011)
The Singapore model
In his ambitious and visionary manifesto, the Mahinda Chintana, President Rajapaksa outlined specific goals encompassing multiple aspects of Sri Lanka's economy and society, including 'a land of plenty', clean water, electricity and houses for all, a law-abiding society, 'a clean, green environment' and future prosperity. The Mahinda Chintana also stated that the new era would 'break the fundamentalist concepts of a traditional homeland and a separate state and empower the citizens of this country to arrive at a peaceful political solution which would devolve power to all its citizens' (Department of National Planning 2010: 52). President Rajapaksa said that his main target was to develop the economy. The peace and prosperity agenda was a high-profile one for the GoSL, and the language of 'regional empowerment' was also used. The CIA's World Factbook of 2010 lists Sri Lanka's public debt at an estimated 82.9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) for 2009. But government spokesmen boasted of Chinese loans at 2 per cent interest only, and of growing outward trade with the East, while hoping for better relations with the West as well (DeVotta 2007). Per capita income had reportedly doubled from just over $1,000 to $2,000 'during the last four years when we were at war and we will double it again in the next five years' (Godbole 2015). Singapore and Malaysia were put forth as role models. The President's vision for recovery rested solely on economic prosperity, and the aim of increasing Sri Lankans' average annual income from $2,100 to $4,000 in the next few years; to follow a 'Singapore model' and become a regional hub for trade, shipping and communications. In charting this course he drew on contested policy already strongly rooted in the politics of postcolonial Sri Lanka. Economic policy and subsequent dislocation are seen by some critics as contributing to the crisis of the state that underlies modern Sri Lankan levels of violence. The trend for looking to Singapore may be traced back to President J. R. Jayawardene (Krishna 1996) and later R. Premadasa, who sought the introduction of a Lee Kwan Yew-style system to the country. Both of these men were great admirers of Lee and openly followed an ideological position of what they called the 'Singapore model' for Sri Lanka. They sought effective, centrally directed policies for economic expansion, bringing in the 1978 Constitution with a new basis for state power and economic reform.
Vision of a regional hub
In Rajapaksa's words:
[the] next massive leap forward is to transform Sri Lanka into a strategically important economic centre of the world... to transform Sri Lanka to be the pearl of the Asian silk route once again, in modern terms. Using our strategic geographical location effectively, I will develop our motherland as a naval, aviation, commercial, energy and knowledge hub, serving as a key link between the East and the West.
These words are from the Mahinda Chintana document, which presents a fairy linear graph with improved per capita income to one side and the following benchmarks for progress:
• | 2005: hampered by terrorism;
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• | 2009: peace and development;
• | 2016: technologically advanced, knowledge-based and self-sufficient economy.
The 'Five Hubs plus Tourism' outline was showcased in 2010. Sri Lanka would become a centre for the Asian region, a vibrant, advanced intersecting point for shipping lanes, air routes and telecommunications. It would achieve excellence in the five hubs, which in turn would bring prosperity to the nation. The hubs would look something like this:
• | The naval hub: Sri Lanka would reclaim what had been a vibrant position on the Indian Ocean silk route. A new port would be constructed at Hambantota, container handling capacity would be doubled at the Port of Colombo, and new port developments would be sited at Oluvil, Kankesanthurai and Trincomalee.
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• | The aviation hub: with its key strategic capability, Sri Lanka would take a lead in the skies through the modernisation of Bandaranaike International Airport and the construction of a new airport at Hambantota.
• | The commercial hub: Sri Lanka would forge ahead to develop along the same lines as Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai as one of Asia's foremost jurisdictions in the fields of commercial services, international banking and investment.
• | The energy hub: energy resources would be developed, from oil and gas to renewable sources, as well as providing greater thermal energy capacity. New oil refineries were planned in Hambantota and Sapugaskanda, and work would be undertaken to see that mineral sand resources could be used to generate nuclear power.
• | The knowledge hub: in ancient times, Sri Lanka's Buddhist monasteries were recognised seats of learning, from which the teaching of the Buddha spread out to the rest of Asia. Sri Lanka would attract national experts who have excelled internationally to return to the country. The education system would be reformed and ICT training developed to attract both foreign and domestic students, equipping Sri Lanka for success in a modern economy.
Basically the 'Emerging Wonder of Asia' would be based on the design and implementation of expansive infrastructure-centred mega-development projects: for example, the total redevelopment of Hambantota and the Sampur coal-fired power plant and industrial park as well as the creation of new, specialised economic zones and luxury tourism enclaves (Law and Society Trust 2014; Buthpitiya 2013; Sirimane 2014).
The 'Singapore model' had its own particular resonance in Sri Lanka; in Sinhala, it was known as singappooruwak (implying a concept of being Singapore-like) and was seen as derivative of 'Jayawardena mathaya', J. R. Jayawardena's vision that aimed to make Sri Lanka a new industrialised nation by the year 2000. In the words of one minister: 'The law and democratic principles sometimes hamper development but a pinch of dictatorship can expedite the expected target at the expected time as witnessed in many Asian Tiger countries.' He went on to argue that: 'It is no doubt that people have to undergo hardship when large scale development projects are implemented either by the state or the private sector. But they will have to bear it for the larger interest of the country' (Jayasekera 2011). He possibly meant cases such as Sampur's special economic zone, some 5,000 acres of land from which hundreds of families were evicted and forced to relinquish their hereditary ownership, hence losing their farms and livelihoods as well. Not everyone agreed with this approach. An editorial by Shanie in 2011 lamented the redevelopment of Colombo:
on the Singapore model and the eviction of the urban poor who have been long-time residents of the city which] is in keeping with that plan. The human element gets lost in such plans. What is even more appalling is that both civil society and the media have been intimidated into silence. This perhaps also follows the Singapore model where the opposition have to undergo much harassment. ([Shanie 2011)
The Singapore model thus had its critics. There was concern that the city state had suffered its own political purges and had a less than vibrant democracy and that there was state control of the press. Then there were named contradictions as well. For example, the 2010 decision that the Sri Lankan national anthem would be sung only in Sinhala (salt in the old wound of the 'Sinhala only' policy of 1956, which sparked riots and division) ran counter to important elements of Singapore state policy: whereas the majority community in Singapore is Chinese, the national anthem is sung in Malay, the mother tongue of the minority. English, Chinese and Malay are all recognised as official languages. Another theme that provoked discussion was the issue of corruption. One critic noted in 2010 that as late as the 1980s Singapore was considered a 'corrupt state':
Last year, Transparency International ranked Singapore as among the three least corrupt countries in the world. It is widely acknowledged that the critical factor that helped Singapore achieve this status is strong political will, something that is sadly lacking in many developing countries. Like Singapore, Sri Lanka has the legal and institutional mechanisms to fight bribery and corruption... There is the Independent Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (it ended its term last month without a new committee being appointed), an independent judiciary, the Auditor-General, the Attorney General, Parliamentary Committees, such as the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE), the Public Services Commission, the Police Commission, the code of conduct for government officials, the declaration of assets for certain grades of public officers, the public procurement procedure, and so on.
Sri Lanka is also a signatory to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. In fact, retired Supreme Court Judge, Saleem Marzoof PC, once remarked that Sri Lanka can legitimately boast of the best anti-corruption laws in the entire Third World. We have the laws, but we haven't been able to check bribery and corruption, which is rampant in Sri Lanka. Last year, Transparency International ranked Sri Lanka in 97th place on its corruption perception index... Inadequate legal provisions cannot be the reason for this sorry state of affairs.
By February 2011, on celebrating its sixty-third year of independence, Sri Lanka would nonetheless claim to be one of South Asia's fastest-growing economies. Social indicators, with the exception of those in the North and East, were the best in the region, and its strategic location gleaned investment from both Asian giants: China and India. The growth rate was up to around 8 per cent, the stock market was doing well, and tourists had returned for beach holidays thanks to the island's scenic beauty. Moreover, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) congratulated the GoSL as it released a standby agreement loan tranche despite the high ratio of public debt to GDP. Celebrations took place in a still militarised capital city, alongside protest demonstrations by the UNP and by citizens against authoritarian rule, attacks on (plus disappearances of) media personnel and human rights defenders, and a boycott of the event by Tamil political leaders in protest at the government's failure to share power.
In five years following the end of the war, Sri Lanka would receive some $4 billion from China in the form of aid, soft loans and grants, with nearly 70 per cent of infrastructure funded by Chinese banks and institutions and built by Chinese companies, often with their own labour brought in and housed on site. Major projects included: Hambantota Port; the A9 Highway, which linked central Sri Lanka to the previous war zone; the Southern Expressway, to speed up transit times along the southern coast; the Colombo Port terminal expansion; the Norochcholai coal-fired power plant, intended to provide over a third of the country's power; and the first phase of the Southern Railway (Barta 2014). But at the same time as it was expanding its infrastructure, the 'Emerging Wonder of Asia' was basing its economy more and more on military penetration through access to land, business franchises including tourist resorts and construction, and significant continual recruitment in spite of the post-war status of the country. Twenty per cent of GDP in the budget was for defence expenditure; a country of 21 million boasted 2.1 million army personnel. Urban development, waterways, and the registration of NGOs were now under the control of the Department of Defence.
Goodhand would observe that the government flagship 'Eastern Awakening' (Nagenahira Navodaya), launched in the wake of the 2007 conquest of the East, which combined counter-insurgency with economic development planning, constituted a dress rehearsal for the campaign that followed in the North (Goodhand 2010). In the North, the number of military personnel stationed there increased, particularly in Jaffna.
High security zones surrounded by razor wire and cement blocks encompassed former village sites and fields that had once been agricultural land. Checkpoints and roadblocks took hold as the processing of IDPs began. The first work on housing construction was to provide homes for the military. In both Jaffna and Batticaloa, police registration of travelling Tamils began in 2011. Tamils travelling to Sinhalese areas were routinely required to register with the police, while no such requirement was in place for Sinhalese citizens. In March 2012, a report from the International Crisis Group (ICG) outlined the extent of military control of northern Sri Lanka (ICG 2012a). Along with registration requirements on Tamils (including interviews about family members and ID photo records), the ICG documented intimidation from government-controlled Tamil militias and the violent suppression of dissent. The report argues that the Sri Lankan military has 'become an army of occupation physically and psychologically'.
If the Singapore model was given strong promotion, critics now raised the question of whether the economy was in fact following more closely the former Indonesian (Suharto-led) 'military business' paradigm. The air force operated private flights to Jaffna. Rajasingham-Senanayake observed that, along the A9 road to Jaffna, the military ran tea shops, competing with recently returned impoverished IDPs:
In the war-ravaged North and East, the military] has acquired extensive public and private lands under the banner of providing 'security', and it is setting up large farms to grow vegetables and fruits in the Mannar district. The ramifications of this, however, have left Tamil and Muslim farmers landless, as some of their lands, now occupied by the military, have been earmarked for business ventures, including a coal-fired power plant, tourism projects and agro industries. ([Rajasingham-Senanayake 2011)
There was no question that the war-ravaged North and much of the East were in sore need of reconstruction. The districts of Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi had suffered the devastation of practically their entire infrastructure and whole-scale population displacement. Massive programming was scheduled in two phases: first, a 180-day concerted effort at de-mining, resettlement of IDPs, provision of an energy grid and telecommunication reconstruction. The second phase would look at wider infrastructure development, electricity, transport, water supply, health, education and livelihoods. The Governor of the Northern Province was a Major General; of the Eastern, a Rear Admiral (ICG 2011a). Sri Lanka planned for development hubs in areas of maritime capability, aviation, commerce and trade, power and energy, and for the knowledge-based economy, and, with the help of the IMF and foreign donors, to dedicate $1.5 billion to $2 billion a year on road and rail development, power production, port facilities, and water and sanitation. But many asked whether this was sufficient to heal a society still fractured by past injustice and shared loss in violent conflict. Where exactly was reconciliation positioned in the post-war agenda?
Reconciliation
Writing in August 2010, noted political analyst Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu observed that Sri Lanka faced the challenge of moving from being a post-war to a post-conflict nation. His suggestion was clear. 'The priorities should be: peace via a political settlement reconciliation through aiding the plight of internally displaced persons, the reversal of the culture of impunity over human rights violations and promoting unity by resisting majority domination' (Saravanamuttu 2010). The Mahinda Chintana outlined reconciliation measures for the North and the East ranging from elections for the Northern Provincial Council and dedicated funds for resettlement and reconstruction, to the rolling back of high security zones from private agricultural land in Jaffna. Taken at face value these would sound like potential steps to reconcile after the extreme suffering and loss of way, in keeping with mainstream understandings of the term. Kaufman refers to the ideal definition of reconciliation as 'characterised by mutual recognition and acceptance, invested interests and goals in developing peaceful relations, as well as fully normalised, cooperative political, economic and cultural relations' (Kaufman 2006: 207).
In practice under Rajapaksa, however, the 'spirit' did not always match the 'words' in Sri Lankan politics, where the discourse and practice of reconciliation became enmeshed with resistance to interference from the UN and Western governments. Ban Ki-moon's personal intervention to seek reassurances on accountability for possible human rights violations at the end of the war met with no visible response or institutional inquiry mechanisms. He reacted to this with a proposal for a UN advisory panel on Sri Lanka (mentioned above) with the task of advising him on appropriate measures. Views and definitions of reconciliation diverged sharply, with the Sri Lankan government proceeding to use the term seemingly to mean rehabilitation. To reconcile meant to bring back into the fold, and to correct deviant behaviours, hearts and minds. They did, however, establish a Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) in the country. This was initially to be a seven-member commission dealing with the period from 2002 to 2009, and in particular with 'incidents', with no mention of root causes or underlying grievances. In September 2010, Rajapaksa addressed the UN with the following message on the LLRC:
This independent Commission, comprising eight Sri Lankans of eminence and stature, has already begun its work. Recently, the Commission handed over to me an interim communication recommending certain administrative steps that may need to be taken in the reconciliation process.
We believe that for the rebuilding and healing of our nation to succeed, the process must evolve from within. If history has taught us one thing, it is that imposed external solutions breed resentment and ultimately fail. Ours, by contrast, is a home grown process, which reflects the culture and traditions of our people. (Asian Tribune 2010)
The LLRC proved to be a classic example of Sri Lankan 'push-back' at international standards and at the UN in particular. An editorial in India minced no words: 'the real motive of LLRC was to bail out the government from being brought under the scanner of an international commission of enquiry that would have meant big trouble for Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa' (Newman 2012). There were concerns over impartiality, given that the incumbent Attorney General was chosen to chair, with members including an individual who had served with the UN ad hoc Committee on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism, and another who had served as Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the UN during the final stages of the war. All members were personally chosen by the President, with a standing tenure of nearly eighteen months of which less than a month was spent outside Colombo and only six days in the war zone of the Vanni itself. Additional issues arose over language. Many people needed to give testimony in Tamil and were not sure that they were understood; gender sensitivity was lacking in terms of any means for private expressions about sexual violence. There was no witness protection, and a lack of transparency for the Commission's approach and plans. Amnesty International (2011) issued a statement: 'Sri Lanka's LLRC is not a credible accountability mechanism. Its mandate is seriously flawed and in practice it falls far short of international standards on national commissions of inquiry.' Doubts were voiced by Sri Lankan civil society, by many in the diaspora and by international human rights organisations. Amnesty International sent a submission to the LLRC in August 2010 highlighting what it called systematic failures of domestic mechanisms to bring about justice, truth and reparations for victims.
In October 2010, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the ICG declined an invitation to testify before the LLRC, noting its severe shortcomings, including the Commission's 'inadequate mandate, insufficient guarantees of independence, and lack of witness protection'. The UN Secretary-General's Independent Panel expressed the view that the LLRC could not satisfy the commitment on accountability given by the President of Sri Lanka and the Secretary-General of the UN (Ratwatte 2012). They found that the Sri Lankan justice system was incapable of providing accountability. The independence of the Attorney General had been eroded and the continuation of emergency regulations and the Prevention of Terrorism Act at that time precluded the judiciary from holding the government to account.
The LLRC released its report on 16 December 2011. Its impact and proceedings will be further examined in Chapter 6. An analytical study of 105 recommendations in the report categorised them into eight issue areas that had been listed by the UN Human Rights Council: 1) credible investigations of allegations of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances; 2) demilitarising the North; 3) implementing impartial land dispute resolution mechanisms; 4) re-evaluating detention policies; 5) strengthening formerly independent civil institutions; 6) reaching a political settlement on devolution of power to the provinces; 7) promoting and protecting the right of freedom of expression for all; and 8) enacting rule of law reforms (Verité Research 2012).
In a speech delivered at the Platform for Freedom meeting convened in May 2012, Saravanamuttu hailed the LLRC report as one of the most important documents in the history of the country since the end of the war and since independence. He recognised that it highlighted the challenges facing the country in terms of human rights, for reconciliation and for governance itself (Vikalpa Sri Lanka 2012). This talk was given following the passing of a resolution by the Human Rights Council in Geneva calling on the Sri Lankan government to fulfil its legal obligations towards justice and accountability, and to 'expeditiously provide a comprehensive action plan to implement the recommendations of its Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission and also to address alleged violations of international law' (Human Rights Watch 2012). Saravanamuttu pointed to the fact that the LLRC report was still available only in English and not in either national language, stating that it was a matter of priority for it to be translated and made available immediately in all public libraries. The very essence of democracy, he argued, was the ability of citizens to make informed choices, and to do so they need information. A national debate was needed to identify the priority substantive recommendations of the LLRC that needed to be implemented in order to make a real difference and contribution to reconciliation. Priorities defined by civil society and implementation monitored by civil society would include: demilitarisation of the north-east; a decrease in the military presence, which currently was one solder to eight civilians; the reduction of the military's role in economic and civic or political life; and information about and access to LTTE detainees. (Promises had been made since 2010 to the TNA with no demonstrable progress.) A public listing and database of detainees was needed, as lack of knowledge of the whereabouts of family members continued to cause much personal suffering and resulted in great public tension and mistrust, undermining any possibility of wider reconciliation. A related outstanding concern was provision for legislation regarding the right to information. Reconciliation required a political framework, and it was the GoSL's responsibility to act for a political settlement by responding to TNA proposals, re-establishing bilateral talks, and – only after demonstrable progress had been achieved on these – establishing a parliamentary select committee to agree to the recommendations in a short timeframe. This vision called for a particular blend of accountability and responsive governance for healing and social renewal in Sri Lanka.
In the short term, there was little visible change, and many people inside Sri Lanka had simply never heard of the LLRC. In official statements, infrastructure and economics were continually given precedence over politics and governance reform, as though economic development would blunt political aspirations and grievances. Development planning itself was centralised, with all decisions going through the Ministry for Economic Development, as per Basil Rajapaksa's Uthuru Wasanthaya or 'Northern Awakening' programme and the Presidential Task Force. The GoSL had also drafted a National Human Rights Action Plan in 2009, something to present to the UN Universal Periodic Review that year, and there was a Presidential Adviser on Reconciliation who prepared a draft reconciliation policy. It was claimed that the government was in 'talks' with the TNA leadership, but the latter despaired of delays and lack of substance.
Meanwhile, in the North, people were banned from public grieving, no memorials to fallen Tamils were allowed, graveyards were razed by bulldozers, and Hindu shrines destroyed to make way for Buddhist sites. In March 2012, Ambika Satkunanathan described how she had asked Tamils across the North whether they felt that a public ceremony to mark the end of the war and to commemorate those killed was desirable, and whether they had thought about convening such an event.
The immediate response from every person interviewed was that since they felt they couldn't even speak of issues relating to the ethnic conflict, they couldn't imagine holding public events to remember the dead. This is evidence not only of the severe restrictions placed upon the freedom of expression and assembly amongst the Tamil communities, but also the alienation this population feels from the state and the majority Sinhalese community. (Satkunanathan 2012)
Both grieving and grievance as legitimate dimensions of experience for the defeated Tamils were to be eclipsed by a dominant narrative in which a deviant terrorist threat had been and was still being cleansed from the country. The Ministry for Rehabilitation and Prison Reform produced films and numerous press releases on its work with former fighters and child soldiers – now to be called 'beneficiaries' and 'our children'. On the positive side, education was offered very rapidly in showcase programmes to young former LTTE cadres, and the programmes rolled out their exam successes: for example, two fortunates would go on to medical school. But the Ministry was top heavy in its messages, although the social engineering was possibly well intentioned: for example, the 'Peace Village' in Vavuniya with its mass marriage of 53 couples who were given plots of land to farm for the 'inculcation of family values'. A polished presentation given to members of parliament and the diplomatic community stressed 'distorted morals and social values' as a cause of the LTTE-led war. The very smooth PowerPoint presentation included a classic iceberg image with a tip of 'armed conflict'. Under the waterline were causal markers including 'distorted history', 'brainwashed psychology' and 'remnants of unresolved issues from colonialization'. Underlying the war were 'imbalances: conceptual, moral and physical', plus 'distorted morals and social values'. No root causes in terms of grievance over language or opportunity were identified whatsoever.
If the new narrative insisted on deeming Tamil grievances as pathological rather than rooted in historical experience and political validity, the impact of well-intentioned reintegration policies had to be doubted. The gap in social understanding and experience between South and North was stark – both were victims with their own experience of suffering, yet intelligent (and no doubt compassionate) businessmen in the South now believed that 'the North and East is where the Land and opportunity are' – as though the land was not previously inhabited or claimed. It existed in such a southern mind as an open (empty) frontier, ripe for exploitation.
In his 2013 critique of the political economy of post-war Sri Lanka, Bastian examined this type of economic penetration and the policies of the Rajapaksa regime in relation to global capitalism. He is clear that the post-war ideological debates on managing state–society relations were dominated by the notions of development and reconciliation, and that these were posed as an alternative to the fundamental reforms of the state that would be necessary to meet Tamil demands for self-governance. 'It wants to forget the war, how it ended and the implication of these events especially on the nature of the state... It ignores creeping authoritarianism' and assumed a post-conflict phase for Sri Lanka, when in fact it was post-war and still profoundly conflicted (Bastian 2013).
TNA spokesmen privately voiced the view that their government counterparts did not take 'dialogue' seriously: meetings were continually cancelled or delayed, any encounter was kept to a minimum of time, and nothing of substance was ever voiced, much less put on the table. They could not endorse a parliamentary select committee with no meaningful or agreed agenda. By 2012, however, they had – along with the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) – for the first time contested provincial council elections in the Eastern Province, expressing a hope that their combined support would outdo the government majority. There were discussions on forming a coalition for provincial government. No party was able to command an absolute majority in the thirty-seven-member council. In the event, the TNA won eleven seats; the SLMC seven; and the main opposition UNP secured four seats. The ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) finished with fifteen seats, and then pressured the SLMC to join it in forming the council. Pollsters concluded that 63.7 per cent of the votes were anti-government. Respected sources reported that five elected TNA councillors from the Eastern Province fled to Colombo and were in hiding after intimidation (and offers of houses or money) to join the ruling party. Senior TNA leader Sampanthan issued a statement to the press indicating his disquiet at post-electoral developments. On 18 September 2012, the ruling coalition's Najeeb Abdul Majeed was sworn in as the Chief Minister in the Eastern Province. Locally, the TNA was pressured and intimidated to give way, and it appeared that the SLMC was also put under pressure. The first provincial council elections in the North would not be held until 2013.
The actions of the government belied any claim of offering meaningful representation in the Eastern Province, just as no political reform was under discussion with TNA leaders. Rajapaksa had opted for a recovery model based on 'hardware' over 'software'. He had prioritised a grand vision of development, shifted away from Western aid and partners to largely Chinese backing, and had rewritten the story of the war and its aftermath. But his approach was in danger of losing sight of the post-war needs shared by all communities. Colombo was basking in redevelopment and beautification but the displaced urban poor could not simply be rendered invisible, and numerous rural villages were still in need of poverty alleviation. 'The benefits of infrastructure remain elusive to people, the sharp sense of marginalization, the dichotomy of macro-level development and micro-level grievances of people... per contra, the aspirations and unresolved grievances of people lie buried under paved roads and grand structures' (Thaheer et al. 2013: 156).
Visaka Dharmadasa, the Kandy-based founder of the national Association of Parents of Missing Soldiers (which she established in 1998, as the mother of a missing soldier), travelled to Vavuniya to speak with mothers of the Tamil dead and missing, and was met initially with suspicion. Allaying their personal fears of herself as a person, talking about the chain of military command that sends fighters on any side to their deaths, and gaining their trust, she found that some 500 families came forward needing to search for lost loved ones. There was no national mechanism, no official recognition of this dimension of unfinished business after the war. In the words of Laksiri Fernando, the government had 'an ideological or policy disorientation that precludes its move towards reconciliation... the belief that after the defeat of the LTTE, there is nothing left to reconcile and the Tamil people might slowly adjust to the new reality'.
In the aftermath of a vanquished LTTE, and in post-war Sri Lanka, who then were 'the Tamil people'? A remarkably diverse and differentiated population, as evidenced by the list below of attendees who travelled to a privately organised forum in Switzerland in November 2009: Tamil United Liberation Front, Up-Country Peoples Front, Eelam People's Democratic Party, Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, All Ceylon Muslim Congress, Democratic People's Front, Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation, Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students, All Ceylon Tamil Congress, Tamil National Alliance, Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal, Tamil Arasu Kadchi, People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam, and the Ceylon Workers Congress. Some of these individuals had not spoken to each other for years, or had found themselves in oppositional positions during the cut and thrust of war-induced division. They debated, pondered and came up with a joint statement that was circulated in Sri Lanka on their return:
Joint Statement: 25 November 2009
We, the representatives of the political parties of the Tamil-speaking peoples unanimously:
Affirm the historic meeting enabling an exchange of views initiating, and express a full commitment to, a common forum among representatives of all Tamil-speaking peoples;
Recognise 'Tamil-speaking peoples' comprise three distinct peoples: Tamils, Muslims, and Tamils of Indian origin;
Respect the distinct and separate identities, interests and positions of the parties;
Recognise and affirm the need for unity and consensus among the Tamil-speaking peoples while acknowledging differences with regard to some issues and the paths to pursue them;
Commit to the engagement by all segments of society towards a just and durable political solution through a dignified, respectful and peaceful process;
Agree and commit to continuing our dialogue.
The statement above arose from deliberations by representatives from within Sri Lanka, many of whom had to reconcile between and among themselves after years of often bitter division and a not always cohesive struggle. Meanwhile, internationally, other discussions were taking place on the development of the Transitional Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE 2010). Global human rights institutions were not forgetting the way the war had ended, and internal soul searching was under way within UN circles. Resistance to Rajapaksa's post-war agenda was not going to disappear; the issues of accountability and governance reform would find additional momentum on an international stage.
CHAPTER 2
Executive presidency and the unitary state
Democracies have citizens. Kings need subjects. Absolutist monarchs need absolutely servile subjects. (Tisaranee Gunasekara)
The thrust of Mahinda Rajapaksa's particular brand of presidentialism may be understood through consideration of his personal political trajectory, as well as of the context and constitutional ethos in which he emerged to take power. Both the executive presidency and the unitary state had prior foundations, which Rajapaksa built on in an agile fashion. Both were intrinsically linked to political economy, from which he would additionally benefit. The prevailing message of the unitary state was not only directed at conflicted Sinhalese/Tamil/Muslim relations but also intended to transcend a very particular tension characterised as 'between neoliberalism and populism' and seen in the disparity between the newer urban middle classes and increasingly impoverished small farmers in the periphery. Gunawardena points to the paradox represented by the Rajapaksa brothers, Mahinda and Gotabaya, the former Defence Secretary. As president, Mahinda exuded the image of the villager, the populist voice rallying against any external threat to the common people. Gotabaya, on the other hand, took on the beautification of Colombo as a modernised city exemplifying privatisation, outsourcing and the world of international finance (Gunawardena 2015). Executive powers invested in the former enabled the latter pursuit, through the transfer of urban development affairs to the Department of Defence.
As understood in political theory, presidential and parliamentary systems of government differ in the relationship between the executive and the legislature. In a parliamentary system, the executive is composed of sitting members of the legislature, including the prime minister and cabinet, whereas in a presidential system the executive is headed by a directly elected president, meaning greater separation of powers between the executive and legislature. Key considerations in practice, then, are oversight and the balance of powers; hence the notion of 'checks and balances' (Guruparan 2015a: 429).
In Sri Lanka, within a year of the 2009 military victory, the following could be observed:
Mr Rajapaksa himself, besides being president, is minister of defence, finance and planning, ports and aviation, and highways. In all, he is directly responsible for 78 institutions. One, the defence ministry, is a condominium with his brother, Gotabaya, the defence secretary. Besides control of the armed forces, police and coast guard, it has expanded its remit to take in immigration and emigration, as well as, curiously, the Urban Development Authority and the Land Reclamation and Development Corporation.
Another Rajapaksa brother, Basil, is economic-development minister and senior presidential adviser, with oversight, among other things, of wildlife conservation and the boards of both investment- and tourism-promotion. He also runs a presidential task force set up to develop the war-ravaged north and east.
A fourth brother, the eldest, Chamal, has forsaken his former cabinet seat. All is not lost, however. He has been elected unopposed as speaker of parliament. (The Economist 2010)
This extraordinary ascendancy was assumed by a man who once marched in protest at human rights abuses in his country. He was also an active campaigner for trade union and labour rights and served as chairman of the Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine for thirty years (Al Jazeera 2010). Here was a man who had not only studied law and human rights, but had himself been detained as an activist when leaving for Geneva in 1992 to take part in the thirty-first session of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. His detention was challenged in court, and yet under his own tenure the judiciary was undermined and dissident voices advocating for reform were threatened or even silenced. While there is a record of his own one-time opposition to the executive presidency in Sri Lanka (Jabbar 2014; Sri Lanka Liberal Democrats 2009), it was on his watch that privilege and dispensation were taken to new levels.
A lawyer by profession, Rajapaksa carefully cultivated the image of being a southern son of the soil. He wore traditional national dress and was hardly ever seen without his trademark maroon shawl; this was adopted from an uncle, a state counsel, who wore a reddish brown shawl to symbolise the particular red lentil cultivated by farmers in his home region. Admirers noted that the President 'keeps a cow in his garden', even when in high office. Although attired in country garb as a badge of the common man's honour, President Rajapaksa would effectively be anointed 'king' and deemed a reincarnation of Sinhalese King Dutugemunu, who reigned from 161 BC to 137 BC – a legendary or mythical figure known for having defeated an invading Tamil army (Liyanage 2013).
When the UPFA won a small majority in the 2004 parliamentary elections, Rajapaksa became Sri Lanka's thirteenth Prime Minister. The following March (2005) saw him visiting Northern Ireland, hosted by the Ulster-based International Conflict Research Institute (INCORE). According to the INCORE website:
During this visit, the Prime Minister was briefed about varied peace and conflict related activity ongoing across the University; the current state of the peace process in Northern Ireland with a particular focus on strategies for breaking political stalemate and deadlock; and the post-conflict social, economic and physical regeneration of the region. (INCORE 2005)
That same year he challenged Ranil Wickremesinghe in the presidential elections. Ranil was strongly identified with the Norwegian intervention (by then in serious difficulty) and international attempts to deliver a liberal peace in Sri Lanka. In stark contrast to this, Rajapaksa campaigned on a platform of Sinhalese nationalism in alliance with hard-line parties such as the JVP, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU, a political party of Buddhist clergy) and Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP), all of whom were distinct advocates of the unitary state. As early as 2006 a huge cardboard placard appeared at Maradhana junction in Colombo proclaiming him to be 'next to Dutugemunu'.
The stage was set for post-war Sri Lanka to be distinguished by a cult of personality that included the hailing of Mahinda Rajapaksa as the 'High King of Sri Lanka', an infallible hero. This began soon after military victory through a consistent narrative that constructed a mythical pedigree for the Rajapaksas, connecting them to this ancient warrior King Dutugemunu and also to the Buddha. Rajapaksa was hailed as the 'Lion in the Lion Flag', 'Father of the Nation', 'Wonder of the World and the Universe', 'Golden Sword which Defends the Nation', 'Golden Thread which Unites Sundered Hearts', 'Leader who Conquered the World' and 'The Sun and the Moon to a Country which Defeated Terror'. He was even proclaimed by the Sangha as the 'Universally Renowned Lord of the Three Sinhala Lands' (Gunasekara 2014a). In fact, there was official endorsement of the association between the President and Dutugemunu, the Sinhala King who had defeated 'invading Tamils' more than 2,000 years before. 'It took 13 years for Dutugemunu to regain lost territory and establish total sovereignty over Sri Lanka. But it took less than three years for Mr Rajapaksa to achieve the same goal,' Sri Lanka's Ministry of Defence posted on its website, adding rather ruefully that kings were 'not restrained by issues of human rights' (Harrison 2013).
Constitutional history: background to the executive presidency and the unitary state
On independence in 1948, Sri Lanka had an impressive international reputation; it was known as a country with strong democratic traditions and high levels in literacy and health indicators, with its own welfare state provisions offering free education and food security for all its citizens. Venugopal (2015) describes the historical dilemma thus: by the mid-1940s, the government had initiated a range of transformative social welfare schemes such as subsidised food, free education and free public health, which changed life for the better for the large majority who had hitherto been deprived. Thus, by the early 1960s, Sri Lanka was seen widely as an unusual and precocious development miracle.
Between 1946 and 1963 the infant mortality rate dropped from 141 per 1000 to 56 per 1000, while life expectancy increased from 43 to 63 years. The adult literacy rate, which was already comparatively high in 1946 at 58%, rose quickly to 72% by 1963. But these improvements also occurred in the absence of anything near a commensurate increase in economic growth, so that Sri Lanka had, in terms of social welfare indicators, burst into the league of countries that were a factor of between five and 10 times wealthier in terms of income. (Venugopal 2015: 672)
Venugopal argues persuasively that Sri Lanka's executive presidency was born out of an elite impulse to create a more stable, centralised and authoritarian political structure that would overcome and reverse the negative economic effects of a populist electoral democracy. It was argued that powers were needed in a strong central leadership that could direct liberalising reforms which a populist parliament would most likely oppose. The public were unlikely to support either market reform or fiscal austerity, deemed by modernisers as critical to lifting Sri Lanka from its agrarian base.
The privileged role of Buddhism, Sinhala as the official language, the nature of public service and the executive's power over the lower judiciary all derive from the 1972 Constitution, which affirmed the unitary state in its second article. The opening and ending of the document invoke the Buddhist ideal in Pali vernacular: Devo vassatu kaalena/sassasampatti hetu ca/phito bhavatu loko ca/raja bhavatu dhammiko – that is: 'May the rains fall in time/May the harvest be bountiful/May the people be contented/May the king be righteous' (Rajagopalan 1997: 8). Here was an evocative cultural claim, in keeping with departure from the less colourful British-imposed Soulbury Constitution that had prevailed since 1946. More a charter for government reform than a formal constitution giving identity to a state, the Soulbury Constitution outlined administrative provisions including the prohibition of parliamentary interference in both religious practice and the privileging of one religion above another.
The only part of the 1972 Constitution that dealt with smaller units than the unitary state was its description of electoral units. This was the first constitution of the Republic, which removed the notion of an independent civil service and paved the way for the politicisation of the bureaucracy. The independence of the judiciary was weakened by several provisions that tilted the balance of power firmly towards the legislature, and the safeguards for minorities provided under the previous Independence Constitution were abolished. The 1972 Constitution, which was enacted 'on the tenth day of the waxing moon, in the month of Vesak in the year two thousand five hundred and fifteen of the Buddhist era', changed the name of the country from Ceylon and proclaimed that the 'Republic of Sri Lanka shall give to Buddhism the foremost place' and that 'it shall be the duty of the State to protect and foster Buddhism' (Tamilnation.org n.d.). These origins lend themselves to a description of Sri Lanka as an ethnocracy, as explored by Welikala in his comparative work on state and constitutional history. He offers the following definition, quoting Yiftachel:
Ethnocracy denotes a type of regime that facilitates and promotes the process of ethnicisation, that is, expansion and control. It surfaces in disputed territories, where one ethnonational group is able to appropriate the state apparatus and mobilise its legal, economic, and military resources to further its territorial, economic, cultural, and political interests. The struggles over the process of ethnic expansion become the central axis along which social and political relations evolve. (Yiftachel 2006)
Welikala (2008) cites the vamsa tradition of Sinhala–Buddhist historiography, meaning that Sri Lanka was not only the Sihaladeepa (the island of the Sinhalese), but also the Dhammadeepa (the island of the dharma). In modern terms, this means that the unitary state is the natural form of centralised government that is required to defend the Sinhala–Buddhist patrimony, especially against the historic 'other', the Tamils (Welikala 2008; Nadarajah and Vimalarajah 2008). It is noteworthy that, during trips to the North in 2010 and 2011, one still heard frequently in private conversation the phrase 'two nations', such was the bitter reality after the loss and destruction of the LTTE administration (which functioned alongside Sri Lankan state public service provision), territorial control and long-standing, socialised aspirations. Welikala (2015c) points to a state in which the constitutional order is substantially at odds with the ethno-cultural diversity of its polity, and consistently incapable of accommodating its multinational character. 'Beneath the stiff carapace of ethnocratic state sovereignty, therefore, lurks a fundamental crisis of legitimacy and chronic instability.'
This leads to his second characterisation: that the unitary state also presents in constitutional reform debates in ways that are opposed to Sinhala–Buddhist chauvinism, and, moreover, that are grounded in modern political theory and civic nationalism with strong overtones of state sovereignty, non-intervention in the domestic affairs of states, and 'Third World' solidarity. This he describes as a 'Jacobin' position because of its view of the republican nation-state: nation and state in a unitary discourse of national identity and institutional form, inclusive of managed commitments to devolution. Welikala reminds us that this vision of the nation-state accommodates pluralism so long as minority claims do not seriously challenge the overarching unitary nature of state, nation and sovereignty. Its accommodation does not extend to the recognition of any sub-state national claims, and the use of force is seen as justified in suppressing sub-state national movements should they threaten unitary order, as consistent with the sovereign state.
Subsequently, the 1978 Constitution changed the electoral system to proportional representation, with an unintended consequence of weakening the relationship between the MP and the voter. This was because MPs no longer represented a specific electorate but were elected to an electoral district often containing numerous traditional electorates. It can be argued that, because candidates were now compelled to campaign throughout an electoral district with a number of diverse constituencies, election campaigns under the proportional representation system became more costly. There were negative consequences: candidates with the wealth and means to finance expensive campaigns had a better chance of winning; and there was greater likelihood of candidates needing to depend on patrons, benefactors or rich businessmen, thereby making corruption an integral dimension of electioneering. Apart from the fact that proportional representation is often viewed outside Sri Lanka as a panacea for the shortcomings of 'first past the post' systems, it is important to note electoral processes in particular relation to Sri Lanka. The 1978 Constitution did not specifically affirm the principle of parliamentary sovereignty in the same manner as the 1972 version, but nonetheless 'seemed implicitly to perpetuate some of the theoretical assumptions about the ultimate supremacy of Parliament'. It would seem that structural constraints on elections themselves and how parliament functions will play into the hands of a strong executive (Anketell and Welikala 2013).
By then the government was shifting away from the previous 'dirigisme' or state-controlled economic policies that had characterised the post-independence period, shaping industry and trade: high tariffs for the protection of domestic industry, price and exchange controls, and restrictive policies aimed at the private sector in favour of high welfare spending. The economy would be liberalised to enhance the private sector and to take an export orientation geared to a new positioning in global markets. And then, in the 1978 Constitution, Article 30 proclaimed that there would be a President of the Republic. There were robust debates at the time. Dudley Senanayake, the leader of the UNP, warned in a statement made outside the Constituent Assembly that a presidential system would spell disaster for Sri Lanka:
The presidential system has worked in the United States where it was the result of a special historic situation. It worked in France for similar reasons. But for Ceylon it would be disastrous. It would create a tradition of Caesarism. It would concentrate power in a leader and undermine parliament and the structure of the political parties. In America and France it has worked but generally it is a system for a Nkrumah or a Nasser, not for a free democracy.
Immunity provisions for the President were also enacted under the 1978 Constitution, as was the conferral of immunity for state officials under emergency laws. In Sri Lanka, the President is given immunity for actions taken during his or her term under the constitution (ICJ 2012). Amendments to the constitution since 1978 have frequently augmented presidential powers, with the exception of the seventeenth, which was passed in 2001 when Chandrika Kumaratunga held the presidency. This actually reined in presidential power by making it mandatory for a Constitutional Council to approve the appointment of all Supreme Court judges, the Auditor General, Attorney General and heads of independent commissions.
Rajapaksa's executive presidency
The seventeenth was overruled subsequently by the eighteenth under Rajapaksa. His eighteenth amendment infamously abolished limits on how often a president could seek re-election and hold office. It replaced the ten-member Constitutional Council with a five-member Parliamentary Council with power to 'observe' rather than approve or veto appointments, and brought 'independent' commissions under the control of the President. Or, to quote an observer from Delhi at the time: 'In short, it is all about arming the President with absolute power'(ICJ 2012). An editorial in the Sunday Leader was scathing:
This is a classic example of Rajapaksa governance – the Independent Commissions will not be abolished; they will merely be rendered utterly meaningless... Another proposed amendment will enable the President to sit in parliament and take part in parliamentary proceedings. This amendment too will be touted as a 'democratising' measure which reduces the power of the President by making him accountable to parliament. In reality, it will enable the President to attend parliament at will, interfere in its work, and most importantly, to keep government parliamentarians on a very short leash.
The Rajapaksas would know that an impeachment motion or a radical power shift in parliament, though not highly likely, is not impossible. Chamal Rajapaksa was made the Speaker precisely to prevent such a mishap. With the new amendment, the President himself will be able to play the 'Big Brother' to UPFA parliamentarians. This amendment, which violates the principle of separation of powers, will further empower the President under the guise of restraining him. (Gunasekara 2010)
Rajapaksa could now appoint his own choices (loyalists or cronies?) to all so-called independent commissions, thus paving the way for the total politicisation of every previously democratic institution in the country. The text of the eighteenth amendment was not made available to the public or even to parliamentarians until it was presented on the floor for a vote. It was sent to the Supreme Court as an 'urgent' bill. The ICG (2010c) called it a de facto constitutional coup which indicated that the 'many decades old democracy is hanging by a thread'. It was passed by a two-thirds majority in a move that did not inspire confidence in due process:
Inefficiency, and unfairness results if jobs are handed out as political patronage. TUC secretary Saman Rathnapriya said the end of the 17th amendment will mean a politicised and corrupt public service. Navarthne Bandara, president of the Postal Officers Union, said that under the new arrangements 'power to appoint officials to the public service will be vested with ministry secretaries who are appointed by ministers under whose whims and fancies they will function. This will surely have the public service eating out of the politician's hand'. The pressure group CPA (the Centre for Policy Alternatives) says the 17th amendment did not work because of 'intransigence and contempt for constitutional provisions on the part of successive presidents, rather than any fatal structural flaw that made it inherently unworkable.' (Colman 2010)
There were indeed systemic deficits in operating to constitutional provisions, working to legal frameworks and standards of procedure. One observer pointed to 'executive meddling' as having long politicised and corrupted Sri Lanka's courts system. 'Telephone justice', whereby the Attorney General's or President's office called judges and directed them how to rule in particular cases, was rumoured to be common right up to the Supreme Court (DeVotta 2013).
In terms of expanding central powers, Rajapaksa infuriated many by advocating a strong centre that connected to the grass-roots or village level, bypassing regional devolution in the classic sense both through a Grama Rajya or village community concept (Gunasekara 2011) and through budget control via the Divinegume ('Improving Lives') plan for a new government agency that would amalgamate development budget allocations under the authority of the Minister of Economic Development, namely his brother Basil. In essence, the Divinegume bill was to shift an additional $600 million to Basil Rajapaksa for development and poverty alleviation, with little if any oversight and a secrecy clause forbidding Divinegume personnel from divulging any information about the working of the programme. As it happened, in this case the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, ruled against the government:
The president's reaction was to summarily sign the order removing Mrs. Bandaranayake, even as pro-government thugs brandishing poles gathered outside her official residence to celebrate the presidential ruling and intimidate her – lest she refused to give up her post. Their actions were consistent with recent attacks against those associated with the judiciary, including an assault on the Judiciary Service Commission secretary after he complained about executive interference in the courts; members of Sri Lanka's Bar Association being issued death threats; and prominent lawyers who protested vocally against the Chief Justice's impeachment receiving threatening letters from a secret group identifying itself as the Patriotic Front. (DeVotta 2013)
The very public impeachment and its unabashed show of an abuse of executive power brought vehement reactions both internally and externally. Opposition parliamentarians rejected the nominal select committee report endorsing the Act; the Bar Association protested in full; lawyers took to the streets in protest; and a broad range of civil society groups registered their objections (Rezwan 2013). The International Commission of Jurists issued an outright condemnation of the impeachment, as did numerous Western governments. In November 2012, UN Special Rapporteur Gabriela Knaul called on the Sri Lankan government to reconsider the impeachment and ensure that any hearing complied with principles of due process and fair trial (UN 2012); UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed concern that the action would set back agendas for accountability and reconciliation; and from the EU came a statement by High Representative Catherine Ashton about the impeachment process, stating that 'the independence of the judicial branch cannot be made subject to actions by any other branch of government' (EU 2013).
While the Commonwealth Secretariat had issued several statements, the Colombo Telegraph (2012) reported that at least one of two independent eminent jurists (whose opinion had been sought within the Secretariat) had found the impeachment flawed and in violation of Commonwealth values and that the Commonwealth Secretary-General had withheld these findings. There began a state of limbo with the newly appointed Chief Justice simply not being recognised by numerous leading legal figures in Sri Lanka. But the President did not back down.
Unitary or unipolar state
Rajapaksa was on his way to heading one of the biggest governments in the world, with more than 100 ministers and deputy ministers in office. On closer scrutiny this looked more like a vast networked structure of patronage and control – politicians would thrive only if inside the ruling circle. The real government was much smaller, being concentrated around the three Rajapaksa brothers who managed nearly 70 per cent of the state budget between them. 'The family had captured the country's economy, administration as well as the management of the ruling Political party' (Mckenzie 2014).
While the eighteenth amendment demonstrably enhanced presidential powers – allowing the direct appointment of members of all independent commissions and the judiciary, and removing presidential term limits, paving the way for stronger and longer time in office – there were other changes in store. Oversight of all NGOs was put under the remit of the Department of Defence, with subsequent new regulations requiring NGOs to report the sources of all funding and account directly for spending. In July 2010, NGOs working in the northern district were put under new restrictions, allowing no 'soft' projects (trauma work and empowerment or psycho-social programmes). In November of the same year, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was asked to close all offices in northern Sri Lanka and operate exclusively from Colombo, the government arguing that the country's needs had changed since the end of the war. The ICG suggested that the message being sent to Tamils in Sri Lanka and in the million-strong diaspora was a humiliating one that undermined the chances for political reconciliation (ICG 2010b). There would be direct central control of post-war recovery in the North.
The centralisation of power and the personalisation of decision making meant that the unitary state was beginning to look like a unipolar one, relying on a type of command development, in that political and military personnel were utilised to oversee recovery measures in the North while also participating in massive infrastructure projects being directed countrywide from the centre. There were historical precedents for central control of development in Sri Lanka: for example, in the realm of agriculture and the installation of primarily Sinhalese farmers through large settlement schemes and mass irrigation designed, built and overseen by central government. Notable among these is the Accelerated Mahaweli Development Programme, which irrigated over 85,000 hectares of land and resettled some 78,000 families; it was overseen by a government authority with little transparency and high degrees of control over the construction of five dams, rural infrastructure and roads, and associated business enterprises. The Mahaweli Authority, established in 1979, was privileged in its purview and not known for its accountability.
Unipolar command development
Post-war command development with regard to the North was initially the means of responding to huge humanitarian challenges: the resettlement of IDPs, de-mining activities, and provision for the basic needs of civilians. All decisions relating to recovery in the North were taken by the Presidential Task Force (which had no Tamil members), which had neither consultative processes nor the involvement of local people or voices from ground level. Task force guidelines were not made public, its members were appointed directly by the President, and it was chaired by his brother Basil Rajapaksa, Minister of Economic Development. Its remit extended from overseeing resettlement of IDPs to discretionary powers over access concerning national NGOs and international agencies, and top-down, centralised implementation strategies that contributed to 'consolidating the regime in the Northern Process' (Saparamadu and Lall 2014: 16).
On a visit by the author to Jaffna and the surrounding area in early 2010, local people who had been 'resettled' privately expressed severe levels of insecurity, in that land could be claimed and encroached upon with little or no notice, ruined houses destroyed rather than rebuilt, and general morale lowered by the presence of intimidating gangs. This was despite a consistently high ratio of soldiers to civilians. 'So much military, so little security,' was a common lament. At least back in the day of the LTTE, locals observed, you could leave your daughters at home and feel they were safe. It is important to note here the direct line from government to paramilitaries such as the LTTE breakaway Karuna group and Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), which had helped the GoSL fight the LTTE in arrangements predating Rajapaksa. Conditions of service changed, however, to a reportedly free rein for extortion and kidnap for ransom as income generation. There was a known, practical agreement with the army to look the other way or just not be present – gangs would tip off the military in advance so that their operations would not be hindered so as to turn a blind eye in a systematic fashion.
New communication systems for internet and mobile access had been prioritised, while fishermen in ancient wooden boats hoped that undersea mines had been cleared sufficiently for them to resume fishing. Bulldozers would appear on a previously claimed site in the middle of the night, the newcomer claiming it for their own use. Major new military bases required the seizure of large amounts of public and private land and the continued displacement of tens of thousands of people, while previous settlements disappeared into the high security zones. The growing involvement of the military in agricultural and commercial activities presented further obstacles, if not total blockages, to economic recovery for northern farmers and businesses. When challenged through public protest, the military demonstrated no inhibition in physically attacking demonstrators, and it was 'credibly accused of involvement in enforced disappearances and other extrajudicial punishments'. Although the northern region was enjoying some sort of revival, attention was focused on identifying economic potential that was not always in keeping with local skills or the transitional sectors of small-scale agriculture, fisheries and animal husbandry, among other areas.
The] Rajapaksa regime wanted to keep each and every development activities under the command of itself. Because of this very reason the post-war development model and its supplementary activities [were] glued to 'Mahindha Chinthana' political propaganda... In other words the development process that needed to be decentralized became highly centralized under this extremely politicized act... as the eventual result of politicization of development... [The] Rajapaksa regime used this... to manage their political power in the post-war context and to legitimize its name in the nationalistic politics against both nationally and internationally confronted pressure groups. ([Rajapaksha 2013)
In February 2014, researcher Aftab Lall would blog about his encounters with the ever-present long arm of the Presidential Task Force:
I remember getting increasingly anxious. We knew of the sensitivities around issues of displacement and the evictions that have taken place due to the establishment of high security zones (HSZs) all over the North of Sri Lanka, both during and after the war. We were also well aware of the omnipresence of the military, often in plain clothing – keeping a close eye on visitors. My colleague, familiar with government actors, managed to extract us from further interrogation (what are you doing here? how did you hear about these people? etc.). Our interviews and conversations with civil servants in the northern administration revealed a strong control over information around the resettlement process. We were told that information on the resettlement process could only be shared after getting approval from the Presidential Task Force (PTF). (Lall 2014)
A less than united unipolar unitary state
Behind the formal constitutional principle, beneath the rhetoric of a rosy Singapore-style successful future for all Sri Lankans, lay depths of complicating factors. 'We must unite,' Rajapaksa said, addressing minority Tamils in a public rally in the former war zone of Mullaitivu in 2014. 'Forget the past and let us build this country together' (The Hindu 2014). He was campaigning before the election in which he would finally be defeated. As his successor formed a government and moved to firm up political alliances, the old hurts and unfinished business raised their head. Tamil critics pointed out that minorities had not voted for the new president so much as against the old one:
Sirisena also signed an agreement with the ultra-nationalist Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), promising not to tamper with the unitary character of the constitution, even though most Tamils are close to unanimous in their view that a solution cannot be found within a unitary state. A unitary state centralises power in the centre. In a majoritarian democracy like Sri Lanka, this implies exclusive control of state power by the dominant community – the Sinhalese. For more than 60 years now, Tamils in Sri Lanka have been demanding self-determination against such a system, either through autonomous arrangements or a separate state. (Guruparan 2015b)
The depth of Tamil feeling, the uneasy accommodation in the East between 'Tamil-speaking' Muslims and others, the country-wide webs of patronage, rural and urban power formations, and intricacies of family lines and caste shape a force field at the heart of the so-called Sri Lankan democracy. Sri Lankan elections are conducted regularly, even frequently, in a multiparty system. The electoral system operates at three levels: the national, sub-national and local. Presidential and parliamentary elections are held nationally. Elections to provincial councils are held sub-nationally, while elections to municipal councils, urban councils and Pradeshiya Sabhas are conducted at the local level. As early as 2008, a State of Democracy report on Sri Lanka noted that the conduct of free and fair elections had become complicated, not least because the electoral commission had difficulty demonstrating independence, given presidential discretion on appointments and its very composition (International IDEA 2008).
On 18 December 2009, the 'National Policy on Local Government' aspiration was published in the official Gazette of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, claiming it was 'peoples' desire for all local units of human habitat to "emerge as micro-centres of growth on modern lines"'. Therefore, the government would 'establish an efficient, effective and people's friendly local governance in Sri Lanka through the active participation of all civil society partners, community organizations and promoting a grass root level governing organization of "Jana Sabha" for a prosperous village government'. It is a rosy message referencing a friendly governance environment and participatory democracy. Political commentators were not impressed with subsequent developments. Tisaranee Gunasekara (2011) commented that the new Jana Sabha system of government looked set 'to gut the powers of local-level state structures in Sri Lanka, strengthening the hands of the Colombo regime'. It had emerged that Sri Lanka's Jana Sabhas would be appointed, not elected institutions, and that they would be given most of the powers generally allocated to provincial councils and local government authorities. They would have the power to draw up their own budgets and development plans and to receive financial allocations from central government: that is, they would have control over the development budget disbursed to MPs, including expenditure and monitoring. Jana Sabhas were slow to take off and were defunct by 2015, according to local sources. By the time that Rajapaksa was defeated electorally, there were sixty Jana Sabhas established in his home district of Hambantota and twelve in another municipal area, Kurunegala.
But pressure for devolution based on the thirteenth amendment would not go away. While elections had been held for the Eastern Provincial Council in May 2008, the Northern Provincial Council remained under governor administration until September 2013 when elections were finally conducted, a shift attributed in a CPA policy paper to the context of Geneva as well as the impending Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be hosted by Sri Lanka in November that year (Ganeshathasan and Mendis 2015: 5). Some of Rajapaksa's confidence may have been dented by India's vote at the UNHRC in March 2012, when it criticised continuing human rights violations in the country, followed by the 2013 call for war crimes investigations. Moreover, word was that at village level in the North, few people had heard of the LLRC but 'everyone knows about Geneva'. Six months after taking office, the newly elected Chief Minister in the North stated in an interview that the change hoped for by people at the election, from a centrally oriented administration to a provincial administration, was not happening. They were trying to establish democratic governance in a province (in his own words) overwhelmed by an occupying military force, which systematically sought to subjugate the populace, change the demography, destabilise the economy, impose an alien culture and stultify legitimate democratic aspirations, while continuing with grave human rights abuses:
Despite numerous promises we still have a Chief Secretary, appointed in contravention of the law, functioning in collaboration with the Governor, who was the former Army Commander of the Northern Province, to establish a parallel administrative structure. Apart from the legality of the structure, from a practical perspective how can one expect to carry out governance democratically, effectively or efficiently, when you have a parallel structure in place, backed by an ominous and omnipresent military? To make matters still worse, we have the bogey of the Tiger being resurrected to justify further militarisation. However, this was not unexpected. We knew the inadequacy of the 13th Amendment and did expect some interference, though the scale of interference from the military despite being in the spotlight of the world is worrisome for what it portends, not only for the North-East but for the rest of the country. (Srinivasan 2014)
The impression was that all sectors of public life were now in a degree of turmoil. Universities and doctors were on strike; the unions were restless; lawyers and judges had called for protests over interference in the judicial process; United Bhikku Front, an organisation of Buddhist monks affiliated with Sri Lanka's main opposition party, the UNP, was calling via a ten-point plan for the executive presidency to be done away with; and continual power cuts were blamed in part on substandard work on a Chinese-built power plant. The Securities Exchange Commission lost its second head in the space of less than a year, amid speculation about corruption and allegations of 'pump and dump' misuse of the stock market. A breakaway from the JHU, the Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force or BBS) was increasingly visible from 2012, violently attacking churches and mosques, agitating against halal food and even the dress code of the veil, and conducting a campaign of intimidation against Muslim and Christian minority groups.
Executive overreach and the unitary state under fire
Sri Lanka faced international condemnation for domestic policies from two very different quarters. The Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), an intergovernmental body with fifty-seven member countries, pointedly expressed its concerns over the escalating ethnic tensions in Sri Lanka that were damaging and affecting the island's Muslim community and its businesses sector. The OIC (formerly known as the Organisation of the Islamic Conference) is the second largest intergovernmental organisation after the UN, with a membership spread over four continents (Rasooldeen 2013). It is the collective voice of the Muslim world and strives to safeguard and protect the interests of Muslims in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony among various peoples of the world.
The OIC was responding via effective lobbying by the Sri Lankan Secretariat for Muslims (SFM), a civil society organisation dedicated to working for the social inclusion of the Sri Lankan Muslim community, through advocacy efforts, capacity-building programmes on research methods, information gathering and documentation, as well as skills training to advocate for minority rights. The SFM highlighted concern over a mass rally attended by 15,000 in Maharagama and the vilification of Muslim dress, custom and mosques. They documented racist posters and handbills in public places, the harassment of people in Muslim dress, death threats directed at Muslim businessmen, desecration of mosques and Muslim businesses, and various public insults towards Muslim beliefs – and the fact that the government had not called a halt to the BBS's activities.
At the same time, the decision to hold the 2013 CHOGM in Sri Lanka was mired in controversy. In April, the Commonwealth Law Conference meeting in Cape Town urged Sri Lanka's suspension from the councils of the Commonwealth on the grounds of serious breaches of the rule of law and judicial independence, noting the impeachment of the Chief Justice. It was also asserted that staging the CHOGM in Sri Lanka would tarnish the reputation of the Commonwealth. A resolution to this effect was ratified by the Commonwealth Lawyers Association, the Commonwealth Legal Education Association and the Commonwealth Magistrates' and Judges' Association. While the Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh reassured President Rajapaksa that his country would 'stand by our Sri Lankan brothers on the issue of human rights', protests and demonstrations were growing in Tamil Nadu, Canada and the UK. The President pushed on relentlessly with public relations overtures in Commonwealth states, and observers noted how important the CHOGM was to his image and to the image of Sri Lanka. Four years after defeating the LTTE he wanted to:
show the world that Sri Lanka has left its troubles behind. He was already on the case at the last CHOGM, held in Perth in 2011, when he strained to conjure up the sense of a paradise regained. Sri Lanka, he observed, had 'famous beaches' and 'lofty mountains', with 'an amazing variety of flora and fauna and safari parks teeming with wildlife'. Having seen off 'thirty years of violent terrorism unleashed by the world's most ruthless terrorist organisation', it was now a place 'full of promise, with an economy poised to take off'... However, a Commonwealth Charter was in place to bring together 'the values and aspirations which unite the Commonwealth – democracy, human rights and the rule of law'. The document goes on to list no fewer than 16 'core values and principles', among them tolerance, respect and understanding, freedom of expression, the separation of powers and good governance, which the Commonwealth's 53 member states are all now pledged to uphold... The problem is that Rajapaksa, for all his eagerness to seize the Commonwealth's helm, has spent years undermining those values and principles. Though democratically elected, he has relied on his popular mandate to sidestep or get rid of all the safeguards that ordinarily stop democrats from turning into demagogues.
The CHOGM went ahead in Colombo, minus heads of state from India, Canada and Mauritius, conducted in purpose-built summit venues via lucrative commercial deals with China worth $1.5 billion. Much of the infrastructure for the CHOGM was funded by China, including a $292 million highway connecting the capital's international airport to the main city. Xinhua news agency reported that sites for the opening ceremony and the main sessions were also built or refurbished by funds from China (Firstpost.com 2013). If the impeachment and the way it was conducted against Bandaranayake boded ill for good governance and for Sri Lanka, some claimed that Secretary-General Sharma and the Commonwealth Secretariat were themselves bruised by this particular CHOGM and came out the worse for wear. Rajapaksa's action was in violation of the core values of the Commonwealth of Nations, notably the 2003 'Latimer House Principles on the Three Branches of Government'. The Latimer House Principles require the state to uphold the rule of law by protecting judicial independence and maintaining mutual respect and cooperation between parliament and the judiciary (Fernandez 2013).
In the wake of the CHOGM, the Venerable Maduluwawe Sobitha, convener of the National Movement for Social Justice, issued a public statement saying that it was time for the presidential system to be abolished, claiming that it had taken the country to new depths of corruption and lawlessness:
The daily expenses of the Executive President is close to Rs. 23,400,000 approximately $160,000] – it's a financial burden, which the country cannot afford. Moreover, it is also influencing and interfering with every segment of the country's administration as reflected by the rampant favouritism and nepotism within the foreign service where even military men who have committed cold blooded murders in Rathupaswala and Katunayake have been given diplomatic postings. ([Colombo Telegraph 2014a)
He went on to state that the prevalent system was one in which drug lords and thugs – rather than ordinary, law-abiding citizens – could survive and thrive due to the heavy financial costs involved, and to express concern over widespread corruption, particularly within the judicial system but also through arbitrary donations. He also observed that the plight of small farmers had become so severe that those unable to grapple with their deteriorating financial situation were resorting to suicide by poison.
In its seventh annual report on Islamophobia, the OIC reiterated its concern over intimidation and lack of protection for Muslim communities in Sri Lanka, also raising questions over the Sri Lankan government's unofficial patronage of extremist Buddhist group BBS (Colombo Telegraph 2014b). From Geneva, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay also expressed her deep alarm at intercommunal violence, a year on from her visit to Sri Lanka and subsequent report to the UNHRC (UN 2014). This came in the midst of the rising tide of international calls for an investigation into war crimes, and must have seemed like maximum interference in internal affairs for the Executive President, increasingly accused of overreaching his powers and with wider and wider cracks showing in his version of the unitary state. Pushing back against international interference became a major effort in its own right.
CHAPTER 3
Non-interference Sri Lankan style
Non-interference in the internal affairs of States, as clearly reflected in the UN Charter and the principles of NAM, must remain an abiding principle to be followed in spirit and letter. (President Mahinda Rajapaksa, address to the sixteenth Non-aligned Movement summit, Tehran, 30 August 2012)
The Rajapaksas in power embodied a particular elite preference for carefully choreographed responses to international criticism; to notions of global governance, human rights and humanitarian principles. Sri Lanka has a long history of international engagement; was a founding member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC); a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the UN, the G77 and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The region has a long-standing preference for non-interference as a principle, with strong articulations of sovereignty, particularly in Thailand, India and China. From the frantic diplomatic attempts to avoid a bloodbath at the end of the war, to the report of Ban Ki-moon's Panel of Experts, to three contested resolutions at the UNHRC in Geneva (and three subsequent High Commissioner's reports), through to the 2014 Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) investigation interrogating war crimes in Sri Lanka, the government was under scrutiny for over five years. This scrutiny was actively resisted and countered by the government, which cultivated its own positional defiance of normative stances regarding civilian casualties incurred during their military defeat of the LTTE.
Two important observations may be noted regarding concerns expressed from the days of the final offensive to the post-victory period. The first is that the significant loss of life after the final military assault was not something that suddenly happened as a tragic blunder; rather, it was a clear destination towards which the military was headed, that some in the international community (and within Sri Lanka) thought could be avoided for the sake of saving civilian lives (TamilNet 2009).
Secondly, theirs was not the first military victory in contemporary civil wars under the rubric of counterterror. In Peru, for example, the government defeated the Shining Path in 1992, subsequently also capturing its leaders in 1999. But in this case the wider civil society was given a role in shaping the new social contract; establishing a truth commission, designing policy for prosecution of those who had committed severe human rights violations during the conflict, and contributing to criteria for reparations. Former President Fujimori, who oversaw the military victory of the Shining Path, was himself convicted in 2008 for killings and disappearances undertaken by the state during the civil war. National debates encompassed a broad interrogation of what underlying grievances and disparities would fuel such a war.
This chapter will begin with an examination of the 'push back' undertaken within UN proceedings, and will then look at the emphasis the government put on image management abroad. Finally, it will outline how the Tamil diaspora was perceived as a serious threat, with measures taken to combat the risk of their anticipated interference.
Defensive posturing
As demonstrated in earlier chapters, in Sri Lanka the official approach to reconciliation stepped back from any political agenda of grievance or aspirations on the part of the Tamil minority and promoted a picture of the LTTE as terrorists by definition. Rajapaksa and his circles fully expected to proceed with 'business as usual' in their national project of the state. The response to international opinion deemed as 'interference' took several forms between 2005 and 2015. The public was told that conditionalities and offers of assistance from former allies in the West would be rejected. UN officials James Elder of UNICEF and Peter Mackay of the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) were expelled from the country when they dealt with information in ways not deemed appropriate, and visas were controlled accordingly to keep other people out. The government took on UN measures by pushing back through formal, institutional mechanisms and procedures, as well as occasional bouts of intimidation and threat. It played off the humanitarian actors present in the country through strict control and securitisation, and it invested financially in professional image management abroad. Lastly, the GoSL orchestrated internal mechanisms to demonstrate self-sufficiency in legal competence, while at the same time limiting freedom of expression in the country and maintaining a climate of fear. It was a carefully choreographed approach to steering its own agenda for state consolidation and control.
Already in war's aftermath there were sceptical views in country with regard to turning East rather than West for the sake of non-interference:
The country appears to be turning away from its traditional western donors in favour of regional allies whose assistance comes without the same unpalatable demands. According to government officials, money from these Asian and Middle Eastern countries, including Libya, Iran and Myanmar, does not have strings attached. That, however, remains to be seen. No aid, not even from your own backyard, comes without concessions, even if not explicit. When the Iranians offered credit support to Sri Lanka two years ago, Iranian firms were subsequently offered a project in the country... Since being elected three years ago, Mr Rajapaksa has warded off 'interference' from the West on issues such as human rights and International Monetary Fund aid with strings attached. However, earlier this year, the IMF offered a US$1.9 billion standby credit facility to the government to offset the impact of the global slowdown. (Samath 2009)
In fact, the IMF had closed its office in Sri Lanka in February 2007 after a period of sustained criticism from government quarters, when finance officials repeatedly asserted that Sri Lanka was not in need of IMF assistance. When a balance of payments crisis required it to seek urgent assistance, however, the government was quick to reposition and fully embrace the IMF, including its conditionalities, in 2008–09. Thus, there is a certain irony in the observations of Feizal Samath quoted above.
Pushing back
Sri Lanka claimed a propaganda victory when the UNHRC passed a resolution praising its defeat of the Tamil Tigers and condemning the rebels for using civilians as human shields in May 2009. This Sri Lankan-proposed resolution, which described the conflict as a domestic matter that 'doesn't warrant outside interference', gained backing from twenty-nine countries including China, India, Egypt and Cuba. In fact, it was a countermove by Colombo against an EU initiative to garner support for Sri Lankan accountability. A commentator noted of the Sri Lankan success: 'The seasoned poker player has tabled a counter resolution titled "Assistance to Sri Lanka in the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights"' (Bhadrakumar 2009).
Experienced diplomat Dayan Jayatilleka makes it clear how another kind of battle was fought in Geneva, one he came to call 'strategic counter-hegemonic resistance':
The backdrop of the special session of the UN Human Rights Council in 2009 on Sri Lanka was this: The thirty year-long Sri Lankan war was reaching its endgame and we were going to win; the Tigers were going to lose. There was a lot of pressure not only from the Tamil Diaspora communities from the émigrés but also the liberal humanitarian view that there would be a blood bath which had to be stopped by a humanitarian intervention by the formula of a 'humanitarian pause'. Lakhdar Brahimi and Chris Patten had written a piece in the New York Times about the imminent 'bloodbath on the beach'. The EU Parliament was pushing a resolution for a 'humanitarian pause' and the resumption of negotiations with the Tigers. This was the template for the EU resolution that was planned for the Human Rights Council.
A Special Session of the sort that was held years later on Libya and Syria in the Human Rights Council was sought to be held on Sri Lanka. This required 16 signatures. The Sri Lankan team and its allies in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) managed to hold it back while the war was on. As Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva at the time, I was fully conscious of what we were doing in fighting hard to hold back the 16 signatures from being obtained so that a special session could not be moved in which there could have been a UN mandated call for a 'pause' on what would be the final attack on the Tigers. Personally driven by David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner, 'led from behind' (as the Wikileaks cable of May 9th 2009 proves) by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and carried on the wave of mass demonstrations in almost every Western capital by the Tamil Diaspora (including a self-immolation in front of the Palais de Nations), there was no possibility of preventing the issue coming up later, though delay it we did, buying precious time until the war was fought to a victorious finish by our armed forces. (Jayatilleka 2015)
Jayatilleka is clear that he had assembled a 'side', networked successfully so that negotiations between Sri Lanka and the EU-led West were conducted by neighbours India and Pakistan, and the then current and incoming chairs of the NAM, Cuba and Egypt, together with Sri Lanka. No compromise was possible because the EU and its allies were 'dogmatically insistent' that any reference to 'sovereignty' should be deleted from the text, that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights should engage in a fact-finding mission to the war zone and report to the council within six months, and that an international accountability mechanism was imperative. In his words, as Sri Lanka's then Permanent Representative, he 'rejected such a sellout of the Sri Lankan armed forces and citizens, our hard fought and finally won victory over secessionist terrorism, and the long-standing principles of the NAM' (Jayatilleka 2015).
In the course of the next year, pressure would mount on the Sri Lankan government. It came from within, when former General Fonseka went public on his willingness to testify in any international war crimes investigation. He was arrested within hours of this statement and accused of plotting against the government. Envoys from Brussels who had urged for an improvement in human rights in keeping with the General System of Preferences (GSP) trade agreement confirmed that their deadline for compliance was genuine – concessions would be withdrawn if no improvement were documented. The rolling out of the LLRC was met with doubt by domestic critics and human rights bodies internationally due to its limited mandate and the fact that those appointed to it lacked independence. Minister of External Affairs G. L. Peiris went on a highly publicised visit to present the LLRC plan to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who also urged the government to give the commission powers for probing war crime allegations. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay called publicly for an international dimension to the examination of war crimes' allegations. G. L. Peiris responded by accusing her of 'pursuing Sri Lanka' in a way that was repugnant to the basic values and principles that are enshrined in the UN system, stating that 'any foreign intervention is not only unwarranted but will also be a source of hindrance, a detriment to the work of the commission as it gets underway' (Haviland 2010). The President's visit to Delhi, while it would result in the signing of a joint agreement, was met with protests and angry demonstrations on his arrival. The release of WikiLeaks cables in which an American ambassador linked Rajapaksa to war crimes came in tandem with the President having to cancel an address in Oxford due to protests (Borger 2010).
In May 2011, a book called The Cage was published by former UN spokesperson in Sri Lanka Gordon Weiss, detailing events in the final stages of the war as witnessed by UN staff members. UK television's Channel 4 documentary The Killing Fields was in circulation, depicting horrific scenes of atrocities during the later days of the war. Sri Lanka and the Panel of Experts report (to which it had still not officially responded) were mentioned several times in the Security Council debate on the protection of civilians in armed conflict on 10 May. The High Commissioner said in her opening statement of the UNHRC that the report contained important new information. Soon after, the new Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions issued a statement saying that Channel 4's execution videos had been found to be authentic by several experts. At the beginning of June, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, together with Channel 4, aired a one-hour documentary during a side event at the council meetings, detailing executions, alleged government attacks on hospitals and scenes of the dead.
The same day as the film showing, Sri Lanka organised a side event and continued with a narrative of progress in its post-war recovery. Severe criticisms of the UN panel report were raised, and there was both an audience for this and a degree of support from 'like-minded' countries. Russia, China, Pakistan and others came out in defence of Sri Lanka. The following year, however, they were defeated in the March 2012 sessions when a clear majority of the council's members backed an American-led proposal calling on the Sri Lankan government to account for the high number of civilian fatalities at the end of its long and brutal civil war. In spite of what The Economist termed 'exhaustive, sometimes aggressive' Sri Lankan lobbying against this initiative, the Geneva-based council's forty-seven members voted, by twenty-four to fifteen, for a resolution urging the government to implement the recommendations of its own LLRC and to start a credible investigation into allegations of widespread human rights abuses. Eight of the member countries abstained (The Economist 2012). The headline at this particular vote was the shift in India's position, moving to a vote for the resolution and against Sri Lanka.
During the previous months, embassies and missions had received phone calls lobbying for the government position; demonstrations were organised in Geneva and Colombo; and human rights activists were harangued and intimidated. February saw a wave of anti-UN protests across over a hundred cities in Sri Lanka, while in Colombo an estimated 3,000 people marched on the US embassy, carrying signs (which were often in English) calling on the US to stop supporting terrorism. On exiting Bandaranaike Airport in Colombo, visitors were met with a sign stating: 'We strongly protest against hypocritical foreign intervention against the Sri Lankan Government. Immigration and Emigration Dept. Authorized Officers Union.' A government minister began a hunger strike in front of the UN building in Colombo, such was the evident pro-government feeling unleashed in the capital. Privately, the word on the street was that the going rate for payments to demonstrators made it worthwhile for many, although no doubt volunteers were out in force as well. On a large banner behind the fasting minister, Wimal Weerawansa, was a message in English and Sinhala: 'Abolish UN Special Advisory Panel.' The demonstrations grew to the point of trapping staff inside the building and temporarily closing the offices. The Friday Forum, a gathering of business, diplomatic and civic leaders based in Colombo, issued a statement of concern:
It is unfortunate that the public is constantly being told that the resolution represents an unwarranted external interference by the international community in the affairs of the country. The international community is therefore presented as a distinct entity which is alien to Sri Lanka. The Friday Forum wishes to point out that raising issues concerning the situation on human rights in the UNHRC is legitimate because Sri Lanka is a member of the international community and a State bound by the UN Charter and international treaties ratified over a period of time. The UN Charter and these treaties bind all States that are parties to these documents. The idea of State sovereignty cannot therefore be misrepresented to suggest that there can be no scrutiny of events in Sri Lanka. By accepting the UN Charter and these treaties Sri Lanka has voluntarily made itself accountable to a progress review on implementation of the human rights standards set by them and this process of scrutiny cannot be avoided. None of this is seen as interference in our internal affairs or a violation of our sovereignty...
Much of the aggressiveness that we have seen in relation to the events of the past few weeks indicates that despite the end of the armed conflict there is a constant obsession with achieving victory and a dominant concern with not being defeated. This is manifested in many of the statements even in the media on the adoption of the resolution, such as 'we have achieved victory in defeat' and 'we have only lost the resolution by one vote.' This is hardly the path to achieving peace and reconciliation. The words of the Dhammapada that 'victory breeds hatred, the defeated live in pain, happily the wise live giving up the idea of victory and defeat' have special relevance for all Sri Lankans at this time.
Nonetheless, in the popular nationalist media message, any resolution for Sri Lankan accountability was also a vote for the LTTE. At a March sub-summit meeting in Geneva, pro-government supporters (not nominally part of the official delegation) causing disturbances were brought under control by the UN police after what was deemed threatening behaviour. On this occasion, NGOs, human rights organisations, representatives of Tamil organisations (including the diaspora) and the High Commissioner Navaneethan Pillay took part and testimony was given by Sandhya Ekneligoda, whose husband had been abducted in 2010 and remained missing. It took courage to appear before such proceedings, where she was 'intimidated, abused and ridiculed'. A lead article in the Sri Lankan Daily Mirror (2012) reported that:
At the same time in Sri Lanka itself, newspapers, news websites and TV and radio stations have since January been running a continuous campaign of vilification, including naming and in many cases picturing activists, describing them as an 'NGO gang' and repeatedly accusing them of treason, mercenary activities and association with terrorism.
These reports had included 'barely veiled' incitement, threats of retaliation, and readers' comments that called for the burning down of the houses of named civil society activists, with at least one such comment calling openly for them to be killed.
The vehement and defensive stance was in reaction to the previous year's publication of the over 200-page Report of the Secretary-General's Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka (UN 2011a). It examined the final period of the war between September 2008 and May 2009, documenting a wide range of alleged serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law that had been committed by both the government and the LTTE, some of which amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity. On the report's publication on 25 April, the UN also issued a statement saying that it had been shared in its entirety with the GoSL on 12 April; an invitation to respond was issued at the same time as publication, but no reply was forthcoming (UN 2011).
On 12 September 2011, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sent the report of his delegated Panel of Experts to the Human Rights Council. It encompassed credible allegations of serious violations committed by the government, the killing of civilians through widespread shelling, and the denial of humanitarian assistance. Credible allegations regarding the LTTE included using civilians as human shields and killing civilians attempting to flee LTTE control. The panel – chaired by Marzuki Darusman of Indonesia and comprising Yasmin Sooka of South Africa and Steven Ratner of the United States – recommended that the government respond to the allegations by initiating an effective accountability process beginning with genuine investigations. The report was rejected by the Sri Lankan government on the basis of it being personally commissioned by the Secretary-General rather than by a formal body such as the Security Council. Thereafter, they would refer to it only as the 'Darusman Report' (UN Regional Information Centre for Western Europe 2011).
Specifically, the panel found that in stark contrast to any humanitarian rescue undertaking, the conduct of the war represented a 'grave assault on the entire regime of international law designed to protect individual dignity during both war and peace'; the military advance into the Vanni between September 2008 and 19 May 2009 had constituted persecution of the population, and around 330,000 civilians had been trapped in an ever decreasing area fleeing shelling but kept hostage by the LTTE. The government had shelled three 'no fire zones', the UN hub, hospitals and food distribution lines, and near the ICRC ships coming to evacuate the wounded. The LTTE was found to have used the civilian zone as a buffer, refusing to let people leave and forcing them to dig trenches and work in such a way as to blur the distinction between civilian and military, firing artillery close to IDPs and shooting point blank at those who tried to flee. The immediate aftermath of the war was also examined, and accountability called for from both parties as a duty under domestic and international law. Very importantly, the panel stated that it 'did not advocate a "one-size-fits-all" formula or the importation of foreign models for accountability; rather it recognizes the need for accountability processes to be defined based on national assessments, involving broad citizen participation, needs and aspirations' (UN 2011b: iv).
The first full-length Sri Lankan official statement concerning the last phase of the war was a 160-page document entitled Humanitarian Operation: Factual analysis published in July 2011; it pointedly did not reference the UN panel report, and states in its opening paragraph that 'at each stage in the operation Sri Lanka took extraordinary steps to respect and protect the lives of civilians' (Ministry of Defence 2011). By claiming the discourse of humanitarian intervention, Sri Lanka elevated its actions to identify precisely with steps taken internationally by other actors. They had utilised the rubric earlier with regard to such actions as the 2003 US and UK invasion and occupation of Iraq, labelled 'humanitarian intervention' by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Now it was being used in a bid for legitimacy on the part of Sri Lanka. Frank Furedi's 1994 work on the 'moral rehabilitation of imperialism' put forth a scenario in which 'for all intents and purposes there are today two types of nation: the ones that have the legitimate right to interfere in the life of others, and the ones that have no intrinsic moral authority to run their own affairs' (Furedi 1994). Furedi claimed that the very legitimacy and moral integrity of less developed societies also implicitly question their right to exist, and as such directly invite intervention. He pointed to an absence of serious criticism of Western intervention in Panama, Iraq, Somalia and Bosnia as suggesting that new conventions relating to the management of international affairs have already been accepted. This point of view has seemingly been internalised by a section of Sri Lankan elites in power, as shown in the 2009 opinion expressed concerning possible UN mediation below:
The GoSL would never accept such interference, and this is further complicated by great power dominance and intrusive measures such as the Responsibility to Protect... This principle gives not just the right but a supposed duty to intervene – but gives it to a select and powerful few. It goes beyond the UN Charter and gives a new imperative to powerful countries so that they can (for instance) 'walk in to Iraq' or anywhere. It is an emotive rationalization for arbitrary decisions without defined principles. Sri Lanka both objects and rejects this.
When President Rajapaksa addressed the UN General Assembly on 23 September 2011, he advocated the need for 'dialogue, deliberation and consensus' in resolving disputes, reiterating the worldwide threat of terrorism, and maintained that there was economic progress in the North of Sri Lanka. But his speech carried another dimension for his international audience, warning of the dangers of powerful countries interfering in smaller ones:
It is important to remind ourselves that every country cherishes the values and traditions, and deeply held religious convictions it has nurtured over the centuries. These cannot be diluted or distorted under the guise of human rights, by the imposition of attitudes or approaches which are characteristics of alien cultures.
In the given Sri Lankan state narrative, those who interfered (i.e. Norway, the co-chairs and the 'international community') would have neutralised Sri Lanka's strength and denied a victory over terror. External interference must be resisted.
The principle of non-interference as enshrined in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) principles and generally articulated regional norms lends credence to Rajapaksa's claims, as Indian and Chinese governments also resist external third-party involvement in their internal conflict zones. Foreign Minister Yang reiterated in 2009 that China strictly adhered to the cardinal principle of non-interference in internal affairs of sovereign states (Asian Tribune 2009), and that, stemming from this principle, China has supported Sri Lanka on issues pertaining to human rights in multilateral forums. The GoSL boycotted the 2010 Nobel Prize ceremony for China's jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo. In early 2014, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying was quoted as saying: 'We believe that people in Sri Lanka have the wisdom and capacity to manage their internal affairs, and oppose some countries' interference in Sri Lanka's domestic affairs under the pretext of the human rights issue.' She added: 'We oppose politicizing and imposing double standards on the issue of human rights' (Ondaatjie 2014).
Sri Lanka was not a party to the Geneva Protocols I and II that were additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions; these dealt respectively with international and non-international armed conflict. Nor had it subscribed to the 1998 Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court. Concerns that Tamil citizens who had sought refuge in the 'no fire zones' had been shelled (severely harmed or killed) were dismissed by the government as a disinformation campaign by the LTTE in the diaspora.
However, Sri Lanka is a state party to the UNHRC in Geneva, as argued stirringly in 2014 by Chandra Kumarage, Convenor of Sri Lankan Lawyers for Democracy:
It is universally accepted that the UN Charter which came into force on 14 October, 1945 signifies that rights of human beings were a matter of international law since a stated purpose of the founding of the UN was to achieve international cooperation in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction to race, sex, language, or religion. Despite its many shortcomings the UN Charter recognized formally that human rights have an international dimension and are no longer solely a matter falling within the exclusive jurisdiction of a state...
Sri Lanka is a state party to the Human Rights Council which is a UN Charter based important institution and it has been actively participating in its activities. When several resolutions were moved against Sri Lanka on the alleged human rights violations and war crimes allegations it never denounced them stating that those resolutions were outside the mandate of the UN Human Rights Council. Once Sri Lanka was even able to turn the] tables against one of those resolutions and make it a resolution in its favour. It spent millions of rupees of Sri Lankan people's money to campaign and lobby against the UNHRC Resolution. Now that the UNHRC is going to implement the duly adopted resolution the government is taking up various objections, including questioning of the legality and the Council's power to adopt such resolutions. What if the government was able to defeat the resolution? Obviously no country or international body will accept this duplicitous attitude of the Sri Lankan state vis a vis its international legal obligations and international relations. ([Kumarage 2014)
Image management: the public relations campaign
The EU decided in July 2010 to withdraw Sri Lanka's preferential trade access to EU markets, claiming contractual non-compliance with terms of agreement regarding human rights. Within months, the Sri Lankan government was paying a top British PR firm about £3 million ($4.7 million) a year to try to enhance the country's post-war image. The BBC's Sinhala service reported that the Bell Pottinger Group was hired to lobby UK, UN and EU officials. Bell Pottinger, whose motto on its website is 'Better reputations, better results', was believed to be lobbying on Sri Lanka's behalf, particularly in Brussels. A. N. Cabraal, Governor of the Central Bank, was quoted as saying: 'So many people are spending huge sums of money to tarnish our country's image. We will do everything possible to boost that image and I believe it is our duty' (Pathirana 2010).
In the UK, the group's main focus was said to be countering what the Sri Lankan government called propaganda by pro-Tamil Tiger groups in the influential Tamil diaspora. The firm helped to promote the UK visit of Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Professor G. L. Peiris, who gave a keynote speech at London's International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS). Image promotion or not, there were protestors outside the IISS before, during and after the talk. Such was their influence that Bell Pottinger claimed at the end of the year to have written Rajapaksa's speech to the UN, mentioned above.
A picture of the money spent under the Rajapaksa regime on international image management and public relations came to light in early 2015, at the onset of the new administration of President Sirisena. Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister A. P. Perera was responding to a question raised in parliament when he stated that that during the previous five years four US companies had been contracted to build a positive image of Sri Lanka abroad. The Minister mentioned American lobbying firms such as Patton Boggs LLP, Cranford Johnson Robinson PR, Steve Hedges and Majority Group LLC. Patton Boggs had been sought out to cultivate allies in Congress, prevent bills or resolutions against Sri Lanka in Congress, assist with the removal of Sri Lanka from the Watchlist on Trafficking in Persons, help the travel warning for Sri Lanka to be lifted, and organise a US business delegation to Sri Lanka. Cranford Johnson Robinson PR was tasked with handling media work for Sri Lanka and conducting image-building campaigns with the US press. The services of Steve Hedges' company had been obtained to research and give publicity to the GoSL's initiatives of rehabilitation and reconciliation work, to respond to inquiries about Sri Lanka in the media and from others, and to oversee media aspects during visits of foreign dignitaries. Majority Group was assigned to obtain assistance in blocking or getting rid of negative resolutions, to organise congressional delegations to Sri Lanka, to plan fundraisers for congressmen, and to organise Capitol Hill member meetings (Gamage 2015).
Sri Lanka's The Sunday Times had earlier reported that its own investigations had prompted a review of mandatory information forwarded to the US Department of Justice by public relations and lobbying firms contracted by Sri Lanka using 'vast sums of public money'. The FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) Unit of the US Justice Department announced that it would conduct a re-examination in accordance with regulatory requirements. Discrepancies between registered information on addresses and contracting parties from Sri Lanka had been identified; under the terms of the FARA, any person who wilfully violates provisions in any registration statement is liable, when proved, for a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for more than five years. For some offences, the punishment is not more than $5,000 or imprisonment of not more than six months, or both.
The report also detailed the amounts spent on public relations overseas. While the actual fee to be charged by Beltway and Nelson Mullins was not then known, the total amount due to the other PR and lobbying agencies worked out at $1,380,000, or more than 179.4 million rupees, for one year. This amount did not include the payment from the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, which had signed on the Liberty International Group LLC from August 2014 for one year. The agency would receive an annual fee of $760,000 (or over 99 million rupees) from the bank. The grand total that Sri Lanka would pay PR and lobbying firms in the US would thus be a staggering $2,140,000 or over 278.2 million rupees (The Sunday Times 2014d).
The Central Bank of Sri Lanka confirmed that it had hired Liberty International after it had ended its contract with Thompson Advisory Group, to which it paid millions. Its statement underlined the need for
a robust Communication Programme in the USA... fashioned to create and maintain a conducive political and economic environment in the USA to enhance Sri Lanka's long-term political and economic aspirations, and to develop a comprehensive information platform where decision makers in the USA would receive clear and accurate information about conditions in Sri Lanka so that it would serve to attract a higher volume of private sector investments. (The Sunday Times 2014d)
The Sunday Times and other critics were not impressed, questioning the efficacy of diplomacy for a start, and warning of the dangers of having a government within a government. But its critique went further.
The saga of the PR/lobbying firms and how they are hired willy nilly by powerful persons in the UPFA Government ostensibly to win over the Obama Administration and change (or 're-calibrate') its policies towards Sri Lanka raises more questions than it answers. Matters are made worse when some maintain a stoic silence whilst others are engaged in laughable semantics better explained by the Sinhala adage koheda yanney, malley pol or 'Where are you headed? There's coconut in the bag'. (The Sunday Times 2014d)
Megan Wilson reported from Washington DC in late October 2014 that the GoSL had hired its eighth Washington firm, in anticipation of the results of the UN human rights investigation into alleged war crimes. The firm Levick was subcontracting through Liberty International Group (owned by former Republican Senator Connie Mack) to represent the semi-autonomous Central Bank of Sri Lanka. Mark Irion, President of Levick, was quoted as saying that its mission was to utilise 'communications supported advocacy to tell Sri Lanka's amazing story of recovery after a decades long civil war against a brutal terrorist organization, as well as to assist the Central Bank in communicating opportunities for trade and investment between our two nations'. Contract documents stated that representation was needed because 'the current international media focus on Sri Lanka was] unbalanced', according to disclosures by Liberty International Group to the Justice Department under FARA ([Wilson 2014).
To take on the media war, the Sri Lankan government also sponsored production of a film in 2011 to counter the influential Channel 4 documentary on the 'no fire zones'. The production, Lies Agreed Upon, was screened in London for parliamentarians in an event organised by the Sri Lankan High Commission; at the US Congress at a gathering sponsored by the Congressional Congress on Sri Lanka and Sri Lankan Americans; in New Zealand; and in the Dag Hammarskjöld Auditorium at the UN. The latter, on 28 September 2011, was hailed as a particular press coup, as noted in the following statement from the Colombo paper The Sunday Observer: 'The screening of "Lies Agreed Upon" at the UN Headquarters is seen as a diplomatic victory for Sri Lanka, because LTTE lobbyists and sections of the Tamil diaspora supportive of the terror group could not get "Killing Fields" screened in the UN itself despite their best efforts.'
Reception of the film was mixed, as it either confirmed a point of view or was seen as making no difference to the opposite viewpoint due to an already deeply polarised and emotive debate. The ICG commented on the documentary, saying that there was nothing in the programme that disproved or even directly challenged the many specific credible allegations – including those in the report of the UN Secretary-General's Panel of Experts. But it also noted that:
The government's film makes clear that so long as campaigners for justice and peace in the Tamil diaspora do not clearly recognise the crimes of the LTTE and clearly repudiate their violent forms of militant struggle, and the damage it did to all communities in Sri Lanka, their efforts towards justice will remain weak. (ICG 2011b)
In general, the justice system did not look in good shape in Sri Lanka, as executive authority was increasingly brought to bear on it. The unseemly impeachment proceedings against Chief Justice Dr Shirani Bandaranayake began (see above) when she oversaw rulings against the government, particularly when she opposed a bill introduced in parliament by the Economic Development Minister, Basil Rajapaksa. The Supreme Court ruled that the bill, which would empower the central government to control a $614 million development budget, violated the constitution. The court added that it had to be approved first by nine provincial councils. Despite the Supreme Court ruling that impeachment proceedings were unconstitutional, she was removed from office by the President in a case that attracted international concern and the strongest of protests from lawyers and judges within Sri Lanka. The following March, Sri Lankan diplomatic bravado – if not hubris – was evident again in Geneva, when the government sponsored a resolution in the UNHRC entitled 'Integrity of the Judicial System'. It expressed the conviction that 'the integrity of the judicial system, together with independence and impartiality, is an essential prerequisite for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, for upholding the rule of law and democracy'. Stressing that the integrity of the judiciary must be observed at all times, the resolution was co-sponsored by states including Belarus, China, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of Korea, Tajikistan and the Russian Federation (Jayawickrama 2015: 222).
Internally there was little confidence in the protection of human rights or the integrity of the justice system. Sri Lanka had acceded to the ICCPR's First Optional Protocol in October 1997. From the 2000s onwards, as documented by Pinto-Jayawardena (2015), the right to lodge individual communications to the UNHRC was invoked frequently by Sri Lankans. This was primarily due to political interference with the Supreme Court from 1999 onwards, and a general conviction that justice was not being rendered by the domestic courts. Pinto-Jayawardena observes that many people therefore appealed to the UN committee, and the fact that not all the covenant rights had been guaranteed in Sri Lanka's constitution made resorting to the individual communications remedy particularly interesting.
By late 2008 the UN Human Rights Committee had declared violations of ICCPR rights in eleven Communications of considerable importance. In some cases, the rights recognized as violated were also rights incorporated in Sri Lanka's Constitution, such as ICCPR Article 19, the right to freedom of expression, and ICCPR Article 7, the right to freedom from torture. In other instances, the Committee affirmed a number of rights that were not explicitly secured in the domestic constitutional structure. These included an expanded right to liberty and security, the right to be tried without undue delay and the principle that no one shall be compelled to testify against himself or confess guilt. The Government of Sri Lanka, before and after the one decade of Rajapaksa rule, declined to give effect to these recommendations. (Pinto-Jayawardena 2015)
Now diplomatic pushback at UN human rights mechanisms was sophisticated and at times brazen, messaging outwards as defence against inward interference.
The Tamil diaspora
If you were part of any official delegation to speak with the President or his brothers in the immediate aftermath of the war, there was a strong chance that you would hear from them that a high risk of interference and threat to Sri Lankan stability was to be found in the overseas Tamils; European countries would be requested to keep those under their jurisdiction under their watch and control. Put simply, they were labelled as LTTE sympathisers and potential terrorists.
The Tamil diaspora as a global phenomenon is a subject for in-depth study in its own right, and there is no doubt that for many there were deeply embedded sympathies for and/or structural connections (through sophisticated voluntary and coercive fundraising) to the LTTE over the years. The LTTE had become the lead contender for winning Tamil rights; it fought for righting political wrongs and offered a vision of self-determination as a departure from past, state-led repression. It is estimated that, between 1980 and 2007, Tamils from Sri Lanka claimed asylum or refugee status in thirty-one countries, with Canada, Germany, the UK, Switzerland and France being favourite destinations outside India (Vimalarajah and Cheran 2010). Canada hosts the largest Tamil diaspora at an estimated quarter of a million, and estimates for the UK range between 100,000 and 200,000. ICG analyst Alan Keenan observed in 2010 that the mood in the diaspora was a mixed one of anger, depression and denial, insofar as the LTTE had stood up for them, fought for them, and suffered a desperate end with the wiping out of key leaders. It was a humiliating defeat, compounded by the enormous death toll in the final months of the war and the internment of more than a quarter of a million Tamils. While many felt betrayed by the West and were demanding justice (or, in some cases, revenge), a minority may have felt relieved that they were no longer intimidated by the long distance project. For Vimalarajah and Cheran (2010), this dramatic turn of events following decades of ethno-political violence meant a re-articulation of demands for equality, justice and sovereignty, with the Tamil diaspora a key player in framing the post-war political trajectory. They also pointed to generational changes, new social media and technological means of transnational influence.
Still anticipating the worst in terms of militant resurgence, the GoSL conducted continual surveillance, internet interception and intelligence gathering on the diaspora, leading to the early arrest of 'KP' Kumaran Pathmanathan in Malaysia – he had succeeded Prabhakaran as LTTE leader. When several suspected cadres were arrested in Malaysia as late as 2014, Sri Lankan national news coverage gave credit to both the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) and the state intelligence establishment. In another development from the near neighbourhood, following the BJP election victory in India and on the occasion of a BJP representative attending a function in Colombo, The Hindu noted:
Colombo's biggest but latent insecurity emanates from the 65 million Tamils, a mere 19 kilometres across the Palk Strait. Sri Lankans keep an inventory of Tamils worldwide. Dr. Swamy, who is the darling of policy-crafters and the military in Colombo, is a frequently heard and quoted voice touching the right chords, like making light of Tamil Nadu's politicians, stressing the centrality of national interest over narrow provincial political pressures. He suggested that the Indian policy of non-interference makes devolution Colombo's business, with police powers being devolved over time.
And yet during the intervening five years, the diaspora had undergone a considerable transformation in organisation and strategy, adopting a conscious transnational positioning. Elections in 2010 for the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) took place simultaneously in eleven countries; major Tamil civil society organisations overseas came together to form a Global Tamil Forum (GTF), with constituent meetings in Paris and London including representation from Australia, Canada, Malaysia, the US and European countries. New sites of confrontation began to look something like this: Major General Shavendra Silva, as acting permanent representative of Sri Lanka to the UN, wrote an assertive letter in January 2011 rejecting unequivocally any mandate or terms of reference of the Secretary-General's Panel of Experts, and reserving the right of sovereign Sri Lanka to conduct its own LLRC without interference. By the following September, a civil law suit had been filed against him in a New York court on charges of war crimes under his leadership of the infamous 58th Brigade. Although charges were eventually dropped on the grounds of diplomatic immunity, it was a time-consuming and high-profile disruption to the carefully cultivated government-desired image of Sri Lanka. Just months earlier, a US court had issued a summons to President Rajapaksa himself when a $30 million civil law suit was filed under the Torture Victims Protection Act on behalf of one of the families related to a victim of the Trincomalee killings and the Action Contre la Faim (ACF) deaths of 2006. Major General Jagath Dias was recalled from his post as Deputy Ambassador to Germany, Switzerland and the Vatican on allegations of war crimes. And, in February 2011, Tamils Against Genocide and the Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils submitted a file to the International Criminal Court requesting the launch of an investigation and the issue of an arrest warrant against Australian citizen Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka's permanent representative to the UN in New York.
According to a cable dated 9 June 2010 released by WikiLeaks, South Africa's State Security Agency replied to GoSL concerns that a suspected LTTE military training camp was operating within its borders; that LTTE fundraising was still ongoing; and that the LTTE was in touch with former members of the South African military. Each instance was refuted, with the statement that 'LTTE does not have any offices or known representatives in South Africa'. This had little influence on subsequent Sri Lankan official statements and surveillance actions, as reported by Natarajan (2012), who documented press interference, the blocking of Tamil websites and denial of service interruptions.
Reflections
Resolution A/HRC/25/1 was adopted in Geneva in March 2014: 'Promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka'. Through this, the UNHRC requested the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to:
undertake a comprehensive investigation into alleged serious violations and abuses of human rights and related crimes by both parties in Sri Lanka during the period covered by the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), and to establish the facts and circumstances of such alleged violations and of the crimes perpetrated with a view to avoiding impunity and ensuring accountability, with assistance from relevant experts and special procedures mandate holders.
Rajapaksa responded immediately, accusing Western countries of being pushed by the Tamil diaspora to take the UNHCR resolution forward, saying that 'Sri Lanka will not tolerate foreign interference'.
Within Sri Lanka there seemed to be an upsurge in media messaging on the dangers of a resurgent LTTE, without obvious evidence or clear trends indicating this to be the case. Possibly to prove a point on the internal threat, or as a response to the Geneva development, there were a number of arrests made in April that purported to counter a renaissance in the LTTE. An official government circular was issued citing (and looking remarkably like) UN document references – notably, 'Act No. 45 of 1968' – and specifically invoking 'paragraph 4(2) of the United Nations Regulations No. 1 of 2012'. This formidably official presentation (signed by the Secretary for Defence and Urban Development Gotabaya Rajapaksa) listed sixteen organisations and over 400 individuals for alleged links to terrorist activities. In the course of western and southern provincial council elections in the same month, President Rajapaksa used the UNHRC process and threat of 'international intervention' in campaigning, and also sharply criticised the TNA for its support of the Geneva resolution. The following month a counter-list was published online by the self-proclaimed TGTE, naming members of the government as war criminals.
In terms of the enforcement and implementation of such measures, it is the state that can act; indeed, even under the successor government of Sirisena in 2016, many in the diaspora remained fearful of trying to return for fear of detention on the basis of being listed. But as a moral form of checkmate, it was an interesting stand-off.
During the five years following the military defeat of the LTTE, when the Rajapaksa government continued its strident theme of non-intervention, Burma/Myanmar undertook major democratic reforms and adjusted its external relations to normalise contacts with Western nations; the Philippines undertook a lengthy process of negotiation with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which included the good offices of Malaysia and an international contact group (established in 2009) that was composed of delegates from Japan, the UK, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and four international NGOs; and Thailand entered a tentative arrangement of talks facilitated by Malaysia to address its long-running southern conflict. While the Sri Lankan President did move from his initial position of 'no civilian casualties' at war's end, he nonetheless held fast to his conviction with regard to external opinion:
It is not for outsiders to impose their values or their judgments on Sri Lanka. It is the same Sri Lankans who suffered from the ravages of LTTE terrorism for thirty years and who are now reaping the rewards of peace that will find solutions to our national issues – not outsiders. (Shillong Times 2011)
Rajapaksa's continual offensive against external interference and internal association with internationals did not happen suddenly or in a reactive vacuum. It needs to be understood through an examination of how internal reactions and conditions developed over time. This means also questioning the earlier influx of foreigners representing the 'international community' and its governance and humanitarian norms; how they were perceived and how they had their own influence on developing trends. This will be the theme of the following chapter.
CHAPTER 4
The outsiders
It's all happened before and will happen again
And we the onlookers
But now I'm in it
It's happened to me
At last history has meaning
(Jean Arasanayagam)
Jean Arasanayagam is a renowned Sri Lankan poet who refers to herself as an outsider and as such uses her work in the spirit of the possibility that sometimes those outside are the best witnesses. She was born into a Dutch Burgher family, descended from colonial arrivals from the Netherlands in the seventeenth century. The Dutch Burghers are the descendants of intermarriages between Dutchmen and women of Ceylon's indigenous communities, and Arasanayagam herself went on to marry into a Tamil family. The notion of the 'outsider' is a fluid one, and in situations of protracted conflict it is often used liberally; to apply to someone who was away from the site of attack when others in a community experienced it, to those who moved into a region from another locality, belong to a different caste, have a family lineage that differs from that of the dominant clan or patronage group. It can apply to someone who has lived abroad; to anyone who identifies externally through work or faith affiliation. In fact, Vimalarajah and Cheran (2010) argue that the dichotomy of 'insider–outside' seldom exists in the self-conception of the diaspora, and that a compelling differentiation of 'hostland' and 'homeland' is valid for thousands in the Tamil diaspora, all the more so after 2009. Many retain a sense of roots and belonging to something aspirational or longed for, unlike foreigners who come from abroad. In practice and experience this may vary or be open to interpretation. This chapter, however, will take as its chief focus the positions of staff working for international NGOs, relief and development agencies and diplomatic channels during the decade of the Rajapaksa period in government. As such, it will seek to interrogate their roles as social actors, as well as that of targeted, assumed trouble-makers that the regime sought to control. For background, it will also refer to the history of international assistance and NGOs on the island; to the recent evolving context of international aid architecture; and to the conflicted role of UN agencies up to and following the end of the war.
Under Rajapaksa, 'outsider' became a blanket term that was instrumentalised, even reified, as threat or obstacle. For a robust and radical rebuttal of the international community, foreigners and NGOs were a front-line target, just as civil society actors who spoke out or testified abroad were labelled traitors. A special parliamentary select committee on 'Investigating the Operations of Non-governmental Organisations and their Impact' presented its report to parliament in December 2008. Transparency International, one of the agencies summoned to testify before the committee, later issued a response in its own defence following negative allegations regarding its work. Already that year, Rama Mani, head of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, had been publicly vilified and had lost her visa; Norbert Ropers of the Berghof Foundation had been made to leave the island; and numerous national and international NGO staff were subject to threats and intimidation. The German ambassador was criticised by the government for both his presence and his public remarks at the funeral of Lasantha Wickrematunge, and, in April 2009, a Swedish foreign minister was denied entry as part of a European diplomatic mission (possibly in anticipation of encouragement to push for a truce). At the end of May 2009, the head of FORUT, a Norwegian development NGO, was expelled with 48 hours' notice, ostensibly because FORUT staff were not allowed to hoist the Sri Lankan flag in triumph at the end of the war and take the decreed celebratory day off. In March 2010, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued a note of grave concern over what they called a 'witch hunt' against journalists and NGO activists, citing the discovery of a list of thirty individuals to be targeted. Subsequently, in its annual report on Sri Lanka, Freedom House stated that among the most serious problems in the country was the government's hostility towards NGOs and the media:
The government views any independent NGO as a threat and has been developing a set of laws to more closely control such groups. All NGOs are required to register with the government, and as of July 2009, 969 domestic and 309 international NGOs were registered. Current law allows the government to review the activities of NGOs and requires them to report their expenditures and sources of income. (Oberst 2010)
Aspects of the clampdown included the assumed association of NGOs with perceived international agendas, including federalism or democratic reform; others may have stemmed from difficulties that had beset the tsunami response some years earlier (Mampilly 2009). Gowrinathan and Mampilly (2009: 3) point out that in exerting strong control over foreign aid organisations, the government claimed to be correcting the mistakes it had made in managing the NGO sector after the tsunami:
In addition to imposing regulations on INGO [international non-governmental organisation] activities, it has embarked on a campaign against groups perceived as 'terrorist sympathizers'. The heads of international aid organizations have been brought before parliament to account for relief operations in the conflict zone. Instead of building the capacity of local civil society organizations operating in the north-east, the government has harassed and threatened them.
They cite the example of a YMCA group from Trincomalee attempting to deliver clothes and essentials to a local hospital being stopped, refused entry and interrogated on their connections to the injured. Clearly, the humanitarian was identified and perceived as partisan. Parliamentary select committee chair and JVP MP Vititha Herath went public in late 2008 stating that some leading INGOs and NGOs were a threat to national security, propagating federalism and aiding the LTTE, even alleging that such groups as MSF and Doctors of the World were a threat to state policies. His strongest criticism was reserved for NGOs working on conflict resolution and conflict studies.
Some background on international assistance and NGO development
INGOs and Western aid donors were active in Sri Lanka from independence onwards; an Asian Development Bank (ADB) study on civil society in Sri Lanka documents early ecumenical organisations arriving from abroad and the growth of locally owned initiatives, particularly in rural development and women's rights (ADB 2003). Sri Lanka became popular among international aid workers who found it a congenial place to work; a safe family station with natural beauty, great beaches and friendly people. It was seen as a safe setting in which to carry out aid work as the parties to the conflict had never endangered or threatened international organisation staff, unlike in some other situations in long-term low-intensity conflicts where aid workers had been kidnapped or killed. There was a widespread use of English, and an educated and socialised elite that was often seen to welcome development assistance. Donors worked around conflictual trends: for example, they did not directly address the politics of armed violence or the clash between government and Tamil representation. They sought to provide development models and poverty alleviation, particularly in the days of the Cold War rivalries with the old Soviet Union, which also gave aid and sponsored infrastructure projects. Kusal Perera (2014) observes that the first ever non-governmental initiative in Sri Lanka to work on racial justice and equality in society was the locally founded Movement for Inter-Racial Justice and Equality, popularly known as the MIRJE, which was started in 1979 as a proactive response to the critical problem of race riots. Initially this was a membership movement, which drew on numerous social organisations and personalities including the political left and trade union activists. In Perera's view, the later influx of external organisations and grant aid funding was detrimental to genuine activism.
Amid the growing crisis, however, local activists sought and needed international counterparts. For example, in the wake of Black July's 1983 exodus of Tamils to India and further afield, there was a rising awareness in Europe, the US and Canada of human rights violations and conflict in Sri Lanka. Frerks and Van Leeuwn (2000: 70) document Dutch government concern to improve rights and living conditions in Sri Lanka (particularly in Tamil areas, at the request of the GoSL), partly in response to the acute refugee influx in the Netherlands. The Netherlands Institute of Human Rights in Utrecht hosted a 1984 conference on ethnic violence that considered the cases of Sri Lanka, Uganda and the Balkans. Out of this developed the Standing International Forum on Ethnic Conflict, Development and Human Rights (SIFEC), and subsequently, under the leadership of Martin Ennals, the founding of International Alert in the UK. With international public interest in Sri Lanka on the rise in the mid-1980s, critical developments in the country resulted in the GoSL asking for increased international humanitarian assistance. In the wake of Indian intervention and the attack on Jaffna by the Indian Peacekeeping Force in 1987, a new exodus of Tamil refugees in their thousands began, in particular across the Palk Strait to Tamil Nadu. UNHCR signed a memorandum of understanding with the GoSL in 1987. The same year saw donor pledges of $493 million to UN Development Programme (UNDP) programming for emergency reconstruction and rehabilitation in the north-east. The UN Commission on Human Rights and its sub-commission on the prevention of discrimination and protection of minorities passed a resolution calling on all parties to respect humanitarian law and invited the GoSL to cooperate with the ICRC. The government, meanwhile, was engaged in a brutal war with the JVP in the South at the same time.
For many Sri Lankan rights activists and NGO development agencies, the advocacy platform shifted to include the need to address political inequality and the underlying factors fuelling violence. By 1989, President Premadasa had his own commission to investigate civil society groups with political agendas. In an era when the island was known as the killing fields of South Asia, between 1990 and 1995 alone some 3.7 million Sri Lankan applications for asylum were submitted in Europe and North America (UNHCR 1997). It was in this context that the Norwegian approach was accepted, and outsiders allowed to facilitate within the country between the LTTE and the GoSL. Despite the subsequent breakdown of the ceasefire agreement and mixed sentiments about external involvement, as late as September 2006 Rajapaksa himself had agreed to an international commission to investigate disappearances and extrajudicial killings, in response to domestic pressures and the then field presence of the OHCHR. This commitment changed into a domestic mechanism or commission of inquiry, known as the Udalagama Commission, which was mandated to examine sixteen particular cases. It was intended that an international group would assist through observation and monitoring: the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons or IIGEP. However, the IIGEP withdrew in 2008 stating specific concerns on shortcomings in the process and failures to comply with international standards (Fonseka and Ganeshathathasan 2016).
Meanwhile, smaller agencies were involved in trying to mediate informally on the ground and influence an end to the GoSL war with Tamil armed groups, as had been attempted at early British Quaker meetings in the 1980s with 'separatist Tamil leaders and government representatives, carrying messages between them in an effort to de-escalate the conflict' (Quakers in the World n.d.). In the late 1980s, British Quakers published a training manual on mediation for use in Sri Lanka (in the English language and targeted to rural audiences). Peace Brigades International (PBI) were present from 1989, and International Alert began programming in the early 1990s.
Development assistance: a shift in emphasis
Following the demise of the Soviet Union, and with the subsequent growth of Western overseas aid, there was a growing awareness of the implications of aid in conflict settings. The concept of peacebuilding was articulated by Boutros Boutros-Ghali in the early 1990s and became enshrined in UN practice. With the violent disintegration on Europe's doorstep through the war of old Yugoslavia and then the devastating genocide in Rwanda in the mid-1990s, there was renewed questioning on how to deliver aid effectively. Peter Uvin's seminal work Aiding Violence, published in 1998, critically examined the direct and indirect support (through externally funded development programming) to socio-political exclusion and grievance in Rwanda; Mary Anderson's 'Do No Harm' message was picked up by numerous Western governments and agencies at the end of the same decade (Uvin 1998). Donors took seriously the idea that they could use their programming to do good.
There was another factor behind the rising tide of international interest: during the early years of the new millennium, the possibility of taking credit for achieving peace in Sri Lanka, and demonstrating such an achievement as a model for others to follow, began to appear attractive to donors. Donor staff and academic conflict resolution consultants were attracted to Sri Lanka as a potentially successful experiment in liberal peacebuilding. Jeffrey Lunstead, former US Ambassador to Sri Lanka (2003–06), was candid in his view that Sri Lanka was popular with donors due to their belief in a peace process engagement which, if successful, would resolve a conflict marked by terrorism through peaceful political means – assisted by the international community:
This would be a model for the region and indeed for the world. It would show that a seemingly intractable problem could be solved peacefully when internal actors were willing, and the international community could play a major role in assisting them. (Lunstead 2007: 5)
As the trend grew for donors to focus on peacebuilding and what was deemed 'conflict sensitive' practice, Sri Lanka came to be seen as a model or showcase of sorts. The war had economic and humanitarian impacts, which justified international assistance; diplomatic overtures had been accepted by a friendly government in 2002. The signing of the ceasefire agreement was widely and internationally endorsed; UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan hailed it as a step in the right direction and congratulated the parties for their courage and determination. The US and the EU welcomed the agreement and ensured their support. The major donors and politically significant international actors formed a group of co-chairs to support the peace process, bringing together the EU, the US, Japan and Norway. To provide an incentive and to encourage the parties to move forward with the peace process, the co-chairs hosted the Tokyo Donor Conference on Reconstruction and Development of Sri Lanka in June 2003, at which over $4.5 billion in financial assistance was pledged in addition to technical support for four years. The money was in principle conditional upon progress in the peace process, but critics later observed that there was no mechanism in place that allowed donors to reward parties for progress or to penalise failure: that is, the co-chairs had carrots but no stick (Holt 2011: 165). Human rights concerns were met with war on terror discourse.
It became a coordination goal to support the supposed peace process in Sri Lanka. Leaving aside the relative merits, problems or efficacy of the Norwegian approach to brokering an agreement, a situation emerged in which the conflict was seen by many as three-pronged: the GoSL, the LTTE and the international community. Walton and Saravanamuttu (2011) observe that Sri Lankan civil society was severely polarised at the time between liberal-cosmopolitan and patriotic-nationalist tendencies, and suggest that during the ceasefire period donor policies had the effect of rendering civil society peace work apolitical and technical in approach. This in turn privileged a consensual rather than a politically engaged role for civil society actors, and saw the building of a Colombo elite of internationals who themselves attempted to take a lead on providing authority, group work and federal models.
The distinctive actor triangulation was formalised after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of late December 2004, with a three-way partnership for reconstruction through the Tsunami Affected Areas Program. Over half the damage was in the north-east, with deaths estimated at over 22,000 and displaced over 500,000. An early consortium saw LTTE representatives (who ran a parallel structure of local government in designated areas, in tandem with state-appointed government agents), government officials and INGOs begin collaborative planning. The Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure, designed to bring the GoSL and the LTTE together for the coordination of relief efforts, failed when it was seized on by press-fuelled popular controversy and was successfully challenged by the JVP and JHU in the courts. Elections brought a change of government and new pressures including restrictions on programming, which might in any case have run counter to military approaches for ending the war with the LTTE. Rajapaksa successfully rallied nationalist parties to the view that INGO involvement was neo-colonial (Gowrinathan and Mampilly 2009: 3). From 2005 onwards, there were increasing regulations to control NGOs, and it was clear by the end of the year that war and violent retaliation were again the order of the day. A situation had developed in which Sri Lankan organisations funded by and associated with Western donors were seen as tainted in ways that made them vulnerable to accusations of being anti-state.
What have the LTTE's NGO/INGO friends been doing in Sri Lanka?
Shenali Waduge, 30 December 2010
Sri Lanka's NGO/INGO sector number 3500 (7 per every square mile). Many of those who question the actions of these 'humanitarian aid workers' base their argument on the type of 'work' that has been done by them, why they are unmonitored & why they lack transparency and impartiality. As the Sri Lankan armed forces march to liberate the North of LTTE hegemony what these NGOs/INGOs have been doing can be finally unearthed (pun intended) & expose who actually benefitted from their 'humanitarian' kindness.
Many of the NGOs/INGOs present in Sri Lanka have benefitted by the continuing conflict in the country – the conflict being the very reason why they continue to remain. The 2004 tsunami was another reason for a further influx of NGOs into Sri Lanka & four years on it seems the tsunami victims are still without homes though less than 125,000 were displaced & the number of NGOs entering Sri Lanka is ever increasing.
The NGOs/INGOs have enjoyed camouflaging their reason d'etre behind a crusade to depict Governments as being unconcerned for its citizens most of all the minorities. Sri Lanka's case has been no different.
Presently we have a chorus of NGOs/INGOs denouncing the decision by the Government to relocate (local & foreign staff) from Kilinochchi to Vavuniya. The Government has gone the length by even offering to continue what they have been doing, if a list of all their activities is given to the Government.
There are many who would opine that Sri Lanka is ungrateful to the UN/the INGOs & other NGOs presently involved in various development & humanitarian programs in Sri Lanka. As a developing nation, saddled with a conflict that has drawn on for over 25 years due to lack of proper leadership, we naturally must be grateful to the hand outs of aid etc that have been given. But realistically much of this aid has never really been free – whatever financial assistance we get from the World Bank or the IMF have necessitated that we align to their Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP) which means we must fall in line with any privatization programs to pay back all loans with plenty of interest...
Disjuncture and degrees of confusion
There arose severe anomalies in approaches taken by international agencies regarding positioning: for example, the designation of projects as 'post-conflict'. The experience described in the poem at the beginning of this chapter is not unlike that described by Ian Quick (2015) when reflecting on Trincomalee in 2007. He had arrived in Sri Lanka to find a 'panoply of development agencies' with satellite offices along the 'forward defence lines' separating the LTTE and the Sri Lankan army, and the Scandinavian monitoring mission. His base was the UNICEF office in Vavuniya; the objective was 'peacebuilding', 'stabilisation' or 'early recovery'. He and his team helped people who had been displaced by fighting to return to and rebuild their homes and communities. But now he was himself in the war; his evacuation was pending, and the day had been marked by persistent anti-aircraft fire and the sounds of thudding artillery:
What the hell happened? What have I been doing for the last two years?
I'd arrived in 2005 with bold ambitions and impossible optimism. The job was coordinating post-conflict programmes with the United Nations...
Before long, however, the tit-for-tat incidents started. Concealed claymore mines scattered policemen's bodies across the dusty roads that I biked to work. Government thugs abducted suspected Tiger supporters in unmarked vans and 'disappeared' the bodies, the screaming of families two or three doors down waking me in the night. Over the course of five or six months, this escalated into open battle. There was increasingly frequent infiltration and artillery fire across the forward defence lines. A colossal truck bomb slaughtered nearly 100 sailors at one stroke, the town of Habarana going temporarily insane around me while I pleaded for radio guidance from our security advisers. Afterwards I was transferred between offices repeatedly, sometimes running away from the violence and sometimes towards it...
Over the next few months there was an increase in general 'insecurity for civilians in Vavuniya but also the threats to humanitarian workers in particular' (CPA 2009: 26). Extrajudicial killings continued, particularly of young men and boys, with families frightened into silence through threats of repercussions; two local staff members of the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action were abducted, their burnt bodies found in February 2008.
In retrospect, it is striking that UN projects in Sri Lanka would be described as 'post-conflict' in 2005. A ceasefire – and only a ceasefire, not a negotiated agreement or solution – had been brokered in February 2002. At sessions in Norway the following December, there was provisional agreement on power sharing between the GoSL and the LTTE, but by April 2003 the LTTE had pulled out of talks after six rounds of negotiations. The next year saw a dramatic split within the LTTE with the departure of Vinayagamurthi Muralitharan (alias Karuna) followed by high-level assassinations on both sides. Burke and Mulakala (2005) note that donor response following the ceasefire was in many ways remarkable, given the absence of any significant political settlement; a no-war, no-peace environment was treated as though it were a post-conflict setting. Following the ceasefire, most donors and projects immediately adopted a post-conflict approach, with an assumption that war-affected areas needed recovery measures and that a peace dividend would underpin the transition from ceasefire to peace agreement. Thus, 2002–05 donor strategies reflected the hope and assumed trajectory of the ceasefire agreement, and commitment was seen as necessary to support any peace process (Chapman et al. 2009: 22). There was an additional synergy and incentive to assist, in that the new government's economic policy of promoting rapid reform through liberalisation, with a greater role for the free market and reduced state intervention, was for the majority of donors a policy portfolio very close to the prescriptions they themselves would offer. Then came the election of April 2004, the defeat of Ranil Wickremesinghe's ruling party, the UNP, and the appointment of Mahinda Rajapaksa by President Chandrika Kumaratunga. Later that year the country was hit by the devastating tsunami.
Kenneth Bush first went to South Asia in his late teen years and to Sri Lanka 'before the Jaffna Library burning, before the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) were thrown out of parliament in 1981–82 for refusing to take an oath to the unitary state'. He recalls the 1987–90 period when the JVP was killing thousands of people, and the experience of working in the spring of 1990 with families in the South who had suffered loss, intimidation and bereavement. There was, he noted, no Sinhalese word for reconciliation in the deep South of Sri Lanka. Moreover, he returned in 2002 to Colombo and observed a new encroachment of INGOs. At a meeting of Colombo-based heads of agencies, almost everyone seemed to be new. 'Does anybody,' he asked, 'know where we were three years ago?' He also asked at the time how it was possible that the World Bank poverty alleviation plan made no reference to the fact that there was a war going on. He was appalled by the influx of new agencies (not always appropriate ones) after the tsunami and the mismanagement of resources.
Bush (2003a) later wrote extensively on intra-group dynamics in the war, and designed the influential Peace and Conflict Impact Analysis tool (Bush 1998; Bush 2003b). He was frustrated that newcomers could arrive with programming plans that seemed to be totally unrelated to the bitter violence, which was a constant in the North and East. Where was the situation analysis? Where was the real plan? The situation he and others found themselves in was the product of the very particular Sri Lankan experience with non-governmental and 'civil society' development, as well as wider global developments in international aid architecture. Moreover, the situation would be replicated with dire consequence in 2008, when the Common Humanitarian Action Plan (CHAP), which put forward the objectives, strategy and approach of the relief system, again took a business-as-usual position, with a focus on the displaced due to renewed war in the East and with no reference to anticipating increased violence or the need for additional preparedness in the Vanni (Niland et al. 2014: 5).
International donors began asking themselves what had gone wrong. A study commissioned by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) outlined some of the key factors detracting from the aid effectiveness of bilateral donors engaging in Sri Lanka in 2005 (S. Harris 2005). These included continual government blockages to aid harmonisation for a coherent development agenda, the predominance of Japan and the banks in overall development assistance, and the failure of tsunami assistance to factor in the conflict context. As outlined in the report, the influx of humanitarian assistance through tsunami relief channels effectively dwarfed and deemed insignificant donors' earlier efforts to create a conditional economic incentive for the GoSL and the LTTE to see through the peace process to a successful conclusion. Secondly, bitter divisions developed around the questions of tsunami assistance delivery and the nature of its focus. This spilled over into antagonism towards international donors and aid agencies. Finally, assistance from the IMF, World Bank, the ADB and Japan, as well as the support of other non-Western donors, could be available in accordance with government policies, and through frameworks unrelated to political or conflict-related conditionalities, thereby strengthening the government's hand in ignoring pressure from other external actors.
Impending crisis
Before the tsunami, from 2002 to 2008, there were repeated warnings by UN human rights actors about violations, including alleged disappearances by state actors and the killing of civilians by government, the LTTE and the TMVP, as well as concerns over child recruitment by the LTTE and the TMVP. Despite recommendations by the International Human Rights Adviser to the Peace Process, Ian Martin, appointed with the agreement of the government and the LTTE, that an independent human rights operation be established this was not achieved. David Whaley, who worked with the UN there at the time, recalls that in the early days of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) (2003) both government and the LTTE agreed in principle to international human rights observers joining the monitoring mission, but the proposal that this be overseen by the UN was discouraged by the then Resident Coordinator. At the time, relations between the UN and the GoSL were cordial; there was potential for agreement on independent international monitors. But at a critical juncture, the UN response was that human rights monitoring under UN auspices would make it harder for them to take an effective lead on development cooperation and humanitarian assistance. In retrospect, an effective human rights role was sacrificed in order to maintain a close relationship for development and access. Yet if independent monitors had been on the ground it would have been more difficult for the LTTE and government to utilize illegitimate behaviours of their own.
Subsequently the UN Country Team were told repeatedly from 2007 onwards that there could be no guarantee of staff safety within the conflict zone, with particular reference to the Vanni after September 2008. Within three weeks, the UN withdrew all international staff, effectively ending UN assistance operations in the Vanni. The UN also tried to withdraw national staff, but the LTTE prevented staff dependants from leaving, which meant that many national staff chose to stay.
The increasing desperation in Tamil areas as the government pursued its repression of international agencies was courageously recorded and documented by Jaffna-based University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR (J)). Their work confirms that when INGOs were ordered to quit the Vanni there was no longer any independent presence to oversee or monitor aid or need; the government had 'practically decapitated' humanitarian capability in the Vanni, rendering the suffering of the people an area open to propaganda and manipulation:
As for the real reasons for not wanting expatriate staff in the Vanni, we might judge from the Mutur experience. From May 2006, the Government through paramilitary agents mounted pressure on international agencies in Mutur to quit. On a Sunday afternoon grenades were thrown at the offices of three INGOs and an employee of the Non-Violent Peace Force was injured. Three weeks later the office of the Emergency Architects was robbed and two foreigners there were threatened. Threatening letters were sent to others including ACF. Circumstantial factors point to the involvement of Military Intelligence with the complicity of the Police hierarchy... ACF too pulled out, but later sent local staff back to Mutur a short while before the tragedy...
In early August 2006 when the LTTE took over Mutur after the start of hostilities, there were no expatriates. The Army retook the town after indiscriminate shelling in which about 50 civilians were killed. Shells struck the Hospital and places of refuge such as Arabic College. When there was a lull on 4th August the civilians vacated en masse. We could thus judge what is in store for the civilians in the Vanni from experience and the Human Rights Minister's inapt remark that they could 'pressure civilians to quit the LTTE-held area'. From 2006, there have been no guarantees for civilians. Schools, hospitals and places of worship have been hit.
It becomes much harder to give meaningful assurances to civilians in Vanni after removing international staff. Their presence would be the strongest deterrence against the LTTE provoking the Army from near places of refuge. (UTHR (J) 2008)
The same comprehensive report describes the way in which the government cowed international agencies: for example, in June 2007, two members of the Red Cross working in Batticaloa were abducted in a white van at Fort railway station. Their bodies were dumped near Ratnapura. The following month the humanitarian community organised a vigil for the victims at the railway station, but UN and INGO heads were reprimanded for allowing their staff to take part in 'political' activity. Personal intimidation, threat and slander were the order of the day.
The question was how to stand up to such government tactics and intimidation. Niland argues that the relief system response to accelerated warfare in 2008 was passive; that the biggest threat to civilians was clearly military strategy and it was obvious how political dynamics were driving the increased threat and a life-threatening crisis. But the network of agencies stuck to a response model that failed to address this, in that such situations are 'political' (Niland et al. 2014: 7). When the final offensive in the North came, when the reality of an all-out onslaught with no genuine humanitarian corridor was obvious, neither the ICRC nor the UNHCR suspended operations or approached the Security Council. In the words of an international aid worker present at the time (who prefers to be anonymous):
Very few international organizations are willing to jeopardize their presence in-country. Presence is Protection, or so goes the argument. Everyone knew. WFP, SCF, Oxfam, UNHCR, UNOPS all had email, satellite links, daily reports from doctors on site. What does it take to trigger intervention? Sri Lanka was the exception that should have proved the rule, but did not.
The belated 'big ask' was a humanitarian corridor for the evacuation of civilians. It was not to be. The ICRC evacuated some 14,000 civilian casualties within the first thirty-five days of the so-called declared 'no fire zone' amid what was deemed indiscriminate use of force; a UN convoy managed to bring out over 200 wounded civilians who had been trapped in the fighting in late January, with reports that the evacuation was followed by a promise from the government to give safe passage to all those still confined behind the front line (Senguptajan 2009). Aware of an estimated 250,000 civilians hemmed in by heavy fighting with dwindling food supplies, urgent international debates were conducted on a viable rescue response. Discussions took place in the corridors of the UN in New York, in Delhi, and in Washington DC (Nayar 2009). US Pacific Command (PACOM) sent an exploratory mission to sound out the viability of a sea mission to bring out civilians; its findings indicated that there was no permissible environment (Haniffa 2009). There were sensitivities anyway in Delhi, where the reaction to US Marines being involved in response to the tsunami emergency was something close to consternation (Agence France-Presse 2005); and Tamil diaspora organisations in the US asserted loudly that such a mission would be complicit with ethnic cleansing in the region (TamilNet 2009). Eric Solheim subsequently revealed that as a lead Norwegian negotiator he was instrumental in trying to formulate an international intervention:
to send a ship with UN officials and representatives of the international community to the northern and eastern parts of the country. These officials would carry out a census in the war zone, including LTTE members and civilians and register them with their respective photographs. All these people were taken back to Colombo, and then they were to hand over their arms to the Lankan army. Except for the LTTE leader, Prabhakaran, and Pottu Amman, all the others were released under a general pardon. This was our plan.
If they accepted our proposal, thousands of people, including the LTTE killed in the war, would be alive today. The LTTE International wing leader, Kumaran Pathmanathan, was scheduled to visit Oslo to take a final decision in this regard. However, at the last moment Prabhakaran stopped him. Our security officials visited Kollampur to provide security for Pathmanathan. Later, we were informed the proposal was unacceptable. (Solheim, cited in Jeyaraj 2012)
Stung by international failures to prevent what is now accepted as having been a mass atrocity – that is, the entrapment and killing of civilians culminating in military defeat – internal reviews and evaluations began in earnest, together with an acknowledgement of systemic institutional problems within the UN itself. When the Secretary-General's Panel of Experts presented its findings in April 2011, they included a memorandum stating its considered view that although many UN staff had distinguished themselves during the final stages of the conflict, some agencies and individuals had failed in their protection mandates, had under-reported government violations, and had suppressed reporting efforts by their field staff. The memorandum found that the UN had not adequately invoked principles of human rights, which are the very foundation of the UN. Rather, the tendency had been to do what was necessary to avoid confrontation with the government.
Subsequently, the Secretary-General's Internal Review Panel on United Nations Action in Sri Lanka of 2012 (also known as the Petrie Report or Internal Review Panel on Sri Lanka) produced a 128-page report (UN 2012) with a carefully drawn acknowledgement of failures, the reasons for them, and recommendations for the UN system. The Petrie Report is detailed in its account of individual attempts to influence the direction of the war: for example, the UN Secretary-General phoned Rajapaksa personally in February 2009, while reports were compiled and attempts made to draw government attention to the high level of civilian casualties and lives at stake. A tense standoff developed over whether casualties were being caused by the government at all, with the GoSL challenging UN data collection; eventually, the UN backed down in that it accepted that its figures might not be reliable.
Throughout the final, messy stages of the conflict, member states did not hold a single formal meeting on Sri Lanka – not at the Security Council, the Human Rights Council, nor the General Assembly. With no agreement on listing Sri Lanka as an agenda item, the Security Council held several informal 'dialogue' meetings, for which no written records were kept and no formal outcomes ensued. According to the Petrie Report findings, these sessions focused largely on the humanitarian situation; they did not emphasise the responsibilities of the government, nor did they clearly explain the link between government and LTTE action and the continual obstacles to humanitarian assistance. The report acknowledges the personal courage of some UN staff on the ground who continued at high risk to organise convoys and attempt measures for rescue and humanitarian response. But critically and simply it also points out that, at the leadership level, the UN did not confront the government directly with the fact that obstructing assistance was counter to its responsibilities under international law. In the words of Charles Petrie in a subsequent reflection:
The main finding of the Internal Review Panel on the UN's actions in Sri Lanka, which I chaired, was the systemic failure of the organisation. This systemic failure was defined by poor institutional reflexes and timidity, stemming from the organisation's unwillingness to reveal the full extent of the horrors being perpetrated in the country in the hope of gaining greater physical access (which was not, in the end, forthcoming), and the secretariat's hesitation in raising Sri Lanka with a Security Council that it knew to be unwilling to take on the issue. Ultimately, it came down to a lack of ownership of the problem, by the system as a whole and at the highest levels. In such a context, the UN Humanitarian and Resident Coordinator and a number of his colleagues tried valiantly to do their best, but it was not good enough.
It has been argued that, even were the UN to have performed better, or been more forthright in stating the information it had, this would potentially have made little difference to what ultimately unfolded in Sri Lanka. It is of course impossible to know and easy with hindsight to say it would have (or not). But that was not the issue. The point is that the system did not use to the fullest extent its moral force. Even the most aggressive governments have been seen to change their behaviour when confronted by evidence of violations of international humanitarian law. And even if a stronger stance on Sri Lanka would not have altered the outcome, it would have demonstrated the UN's willingness to stand up for its principles, rather than allow them to be eroded, to the detriment of its future leverage in other situations. (Petrie 2014)
UN organisational morale had been hit very badly by the killing of three international staff members in a militia attack at Atambua in West Timor in 2001, and again in 2003 with the bombing of its Baghdad headquarters with casualties including Special Representative Sérgio Vieira de Mello. A decade later, in the wake of the Sri Lankan experience, the Secretary-General issued a message to all staff accepting the characterisation of 'systemic failure'; this was followed with a major follow-up plan of action to the Petrie Report, Rights Up Front: A plan of action to strengthen the UN's role in protecting people in crisis. Rights Up Front details specific actions to be taken by the UN in order to act on lessons from the past.
Much has been written about the failure of the international community, of the 'outsiders', to rescue non-combatants trapped in the Vanni, and subsequently to stand up to President Rajapaksa when he stated clearly that the 'President wants reconstruction on his terms'. Individual aid workers have undergone considerable soul searching and whistle blowing over what they saw as inept or inadequate decision making and management (Chapman et al. 2009). WikiLeaks cables indicate the standoff over standards and access that led to the eventual compromise by UN agencies in exchange for any presence or access whatsoever to the North (Aftenposten 2011). There has been less examination of the enabling conditions that were the backdrop to such an impasse.
International aid regimes and global governance norms
Studies of international aid, globalisation and global governance represent enormous fields of inquiry in their own right. What follows is an attempt to interrogate the wider milieu and dynamics that hindered – and to an extent paralysed – intervention attempts in Sri Lanka following the breakdown of the ceasefire, and, indeed, from 2009 onwards while the Rajapaksa government held power. Two fierce opponents, the LTTE and the GoSL, held the 'outsiders' at bay, forged ahead in their own fight to the death, and perpetuated the de facto non-resolution of long-standing Tamil grievances. They did this at a time when 'protection' was an articulated norm in the UN. It will be suggested that the formulation of donor policy was closely related to UN and US policies; and that, in the two decades from 1990 onwards, the aid industry effectively forged somewhat contradictory trajectories in its objectives and emphasis, first coupling development with 'peace', or conflict resolution, and then advocating both counter-terrorism and protection. Agency mandates and individual staff members were influenced and hampered in their operational ethos as a result.
Aid has always been both ideological and instrumental. Long before its current economic success and ability to shape overseas development, China was generous with technical assistance and aid to recipient countries in an outreach approach shaped by communist solidarity and the cultivation of client relationships to build allies and influence. The same may be said of American and Soviet overseas aid during the Cold War, as mentioned above. Japan took a striking leading role in humanitarian assistance, which has given it moral and diplomatic credibility in many circles. The Delhi-based Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies issued a report in 2011 identifying Iran as the largest lender and aid donor to Sri Lanka (Walker 2011). Thomas Wheeler (2012) of Saferworld, however, put China ahead as the largest financer again, committing $760 million in loans by mid-2011, ahead of Japan's $413 million and $105 million from the World Bank. Net development aid to Sri Lanka for 2011 from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was $611 million. That said, the failures at the end of the war were put at the door of those from the institutionalised aid communities – those related to the UN and OECD – which may be considered 'front stage' in terms of any international norm regime. Backstage and less visible are the forces propelling decision making and interests.
Lai-Ha Chan (2011: 47) defines global governance as a 'system of rule' for established world order. He observes the importance to China and many in the region of state-centric values and the centrality of sovereignty. For many in the West, following the end of the Cold War, international shifts including the collapse of Yugoslavia and the rise of the EU meant a gradual norm shift in which self-determination and minority rights were viewed more favourably; witness the referendum and subsequent independence of Timor-Leste, the establishment of the state of Kosovo, and the tortuous pathway to nationhood for South Sudan. The readiness with which the EU and the UN supported these changes must have been anathema to many in South Asia. If the Sri Lankan 'peace process', or at least the ceasefire, was reliant on external donors and the received wisdom of the time that introducing resources could be an incentive to laying down arms, it was misjudged. Development in itself was a panacea; state sovereignty was not up for negotiation, and this was a case where one party would (it seemed) settle for nothing less than secession, and other (unlike Indonesia) would not move towards letting go or the sharing of power.
Historically, in order to deal with the TULF and other traditional Tamil elites, Velupillai Prabhakaran had built a professionalised military organisation dedicated to its own statehood, fashioning dedication through being prepared to die for the cause (whether by suicide bombing or by taking cyanide pills in case of capture), oaths of allegiance, taxation of Tamil and Sinhalese residents, illegal trade, and financial support systematically collected from the diaspora. His proto-state was in operation, the foundation for a Tamil Eelam that caught the imagination, hopes and aspirations of many and caused dread, fear and loathing in others:
In order to deal with the EPRLF, the PLOTE and the TELO he developed a passionate commitment to secession and Tamil independence, rejecting all other options as inherently treacherous and deserving of being dealt with in the most violent way possible. (Biziouras 2014: 180)
In a mirroring of ethnic outbidding, Rajapaksa overrode liberal democratic thinking on federal reform and strove to achieve political success through messages of unity and Sinhalese Buddhist entitlement and dominance. No 'norms' of self-determination, intervention or other people's responsibility to protect would prevail in his state. In the same year as the military defeat of the LTTE, Russian forces completed their own brutal counter-insurgency war on Chechen rebels and declared Russian territorial integrity intact. For Western conflict resolution discourse at the beginning of the decade, underdevelopment was construed as a major factor in the perceived continuum from grievance to war, even as the global war on terror (referenced by both Sri Lanka and Russia in their internal wars) was being waged in Afghanistan and Iraq and promoted by the US government and its allies. Duffield's work on global governance captures the prevailing mood, when much discussion was on the inherent dangers of failing states and fragile contexts. In his words:
The commitment to conflict resolution and the reconstruction of societies in such a way as to avoid future wars represents a marked radicalisation of the politics of development. Societies must be changed so that past problems do not arise, as happened with development in the past; moreover, this process of transformation cannot be left to chance but requires direct and concerted action... Development resources must now be used to shift the balance of power between groups and even to change attitudes and beliefs. The radicalisation of development in this way is closely associated with the reproblematization of security. Conventional views on the causes of the new wars usually hinge upon their arising from a developmental malaise. (Duffield 2014 [2001]: 2)
In March 2005, ninety-one ministers of developed and developing countries taking responsibility for promoting international development, along with the heads of multilateral and bilateral development institutions, signed the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. This document is a collective endorsement of values including 'ownership, harmonization, alignment, results and mutual accountability'. The declaration notes 'increasing alignment of aid with partner countries' priorities, systems and procedures', and encourages decentralised donor decision making, which is meant to enable programmes to be flexible and responsive to fragile or conflict settings. There is mention of the need to reduce and counter corruption, and to build institutions for effective governance and equitable service delivery, and the encouragement of participation. Donors are encouraged to align behind governments in fragile states, and to avoid bypassing national budgets. When noting the tsunami disaster, it stresses that in such crises international humanitarian and development assistance should be harmonised within the growth and poverty reduction agendas of partner countries. The potential for aid to fuel ownership controversy due to the channels through which it is delivered is not addressed, nor are scenarios in which aid can reinforce divisive agendas. Thus the problems of non-fragile contexts in which the state itself is a party to violent conflict are not addressed.
Three years later, high-level representatives of donor and governmental agencies came together to review the Paris Declaration. Even as the UN and NGOs were being cleared from the Vanni, collective international commitment to the Paris Declaration was being reaffirmed in the Accra Agenda for Action; this included provisions endorsing analysis and the application of conflict sensitivity, measures such as a commitment to increasing recipient government accountability to citizens, allowing local and regional firms to compete for contracts, and commitments to corporate social responsibility. It called for donors to conduct joint assessments of governance and capacity and to examine the causes of conflict, fragility and insecurity. Donor discourse, then, seemed to reflect the growing prominence of non-Western or 'non-traditional' donors operating in contexts such as Sri Lanka, many of whom do not question the role of the state, hold strong principles of non-intervention and national sovereignty, respect elites, and are distrustful of imported agendas in the name of democratisation or participation. A Sri Lankan country study undertaken by Kelegama and de Mel (2007: 32) maintained nevertheless that the Paris Declaration template could have been used to allay the fears of government, but also utilised in negotiations to include wider recipient and beneficiary voices.
Relief agencies adopted a different stance towards conflict dynamics. The code of conduct of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), for example, signed by some 446 agencies, differs markedly from the Paris Declaration, Accra Agenda for Action, and the OECD's guidelines and principles. These guiding principles stress that the humanitarian imperative comes first; aid is given regardless of the race, creed or nationality of the recipients and without adverse distinction of any kind. Aid priorities are calculated on the basis of need alone; aid will not be used to further a particular political or religious standpoint. They also state that it is important to endeavour not to act as instruments of government foreign policy. The main difference is the IFRC code of conduct's emphasis on the primacy of citizens' and victims' needs, rather than government policy, for determining what assistance should be provided. Another important point is the requirement of neutrality relating to political or religious causes, and foreign policy. The code of conduct thus seeks to steer clear of strengthening the position of any particular conflict actor. The challenge in implementing these guidelines also brings out a central dilemma: how to alleviate the suffering of the most vulnerable in a way in which humanitarian aid is not a partisan or political act and should not be viewed as such. In Sri Lanka, development and relief agencies were expected to answer to, and take instructions from, a strong government.
While some civil society voices, Western donors and diplomatic representation operated on the premise that the conflict – the 'national question' – should not be settled militarily, sufficient funds bolstered the government coffers both to wage war and to gain in confidence over clamping down on dissent. As mentioned above, the inflow of assistance through tsunami relief channels effectively overwhelmed and rendered insignificant earlier donor efforts to create economic conditionalities or incentives for the GoSL and the LTTE to conclude the peace process successfully. Whereas in Aceh, the tsunami's aftermath opened up a space for previously bitter adversaries to decide to settle peacefully, and in Myanmar Cyclone Nargis brought about new opportunities for outsiders, relief assistance and the involvement of local populations, tsunami relief impacted in a totally different way on conflict dynamics in Sri Lanka (Hyndman 2009).
A major evaluation study of donor-supported activity in Sri Lanka was published in late 2009 and seriously considered the application of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) guidance in the years leading up to the end of the war (Chapman et al. 2009). A later summary account presented a breakdown of key findings:
• | Many strategies promoted 'peace', and some provided support for the peace process. Only a few explicitly addressed the root causes of the conflict.
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• | Few strategies were based on in-depth or recurring conflict analysis.
• | The terms 'peacebuilding' and 'peace dividend' were used liberally. But there was no serious consideration of whether a 'peace dividend' could change the attitudes of hardliners.
• | Most focus was on the 'costs' and not the 'causes' of conflict. So less attention was paid to power sharing, the political system and problems of injustice and impunity.
• | Little recognition was given to political risks (such as delivering aid through a party to the conflict or supporting the agenda of a government that represented only a portion of the political spectrum and was vulnerable to electoral defeat).
• | There was an overemphasis on the extent to which civil society and citizens could bring about transformation and peacebuilding.
• | The 'whole of government' approach was an important strategic approach, but difficult to evaluate.
• | The approach to conflict sensitivity was weak in early strategies, but this aspect was more explicit in later strategies.
For outsiders, the key learning was that it is the political actors who drive the process; the notion that aid in itself could act as a significant lever to promote peace in Sri Lanka was unrealistic. Linking aid to well-intended goals of reform or 'peace' was not effective as there was no strong domestic constituency for such goals. Burke and Mulakala (2005: 166) suggest that the only area in Sri Lanka in which the major donors stuck to a reform agenda was progress towards a liberal economic model. They point out that 'aid is the cart and not the horse':
While political actors have used aid as a lever for their own political interests, donors should not mistake this manipulation for influence. (Burke and Mulakala 2005)
Goodhand wrote that donors had 'probably never had so limited leverage in relation to government policy on humanitarian action, development or peacebuilding' (Goodhand 2010: S357). In order to join in post-war relief and recovery efforts and assistance, UN agencies were asked by the Rajapaksa government to sign up to official directives and approaches falling well short of recognised international standards. Moreover, they were required to undertake in writing not to speak or communicate with each other about their individual agreements with the government. These measures were divisive and indicative of the degree of control to be exercised in the wake of victory. From the end of the war to late 2012, UNHCR undertook a monthly compilation of government statistics to determine current numbers of IDPs and figures for those who had returned since April 2009. This was stopped because of the increasing difficulty in gathering data from local authorities (Raheem 2013: 27–8). Surveys of pre-2008 IDPs begun by UNHCR, UNOPS and the government in August 2011 were also abandoned in December 2012 because the Presidential Task Force for Resettlement, Development and Security in the Northern Province obstructed them (Glatz 2014). Concern grew about the lack of independent and verifiable data as well as deteriorating conditions for both localised security and human rights.
Indeed, Rajapaksa was resolute in his line on the outsiders and their domestic partners and counterparts. Post-war reconstruction was carefully controlled; human rights missions were denied entry; international inputs limited to technical issues such as de-mining, housing and construction; record keeping relating to IDPs was limited so that government statistics could rarely be challenged. In July 2014, it was announced that NGOs would no longer be allowed to hold press conferences, issue press releases or conduct training. This time, the GoSL was in much wider company worldwide, as during the previous three years more than sixty countries had tightened up their laws to control the activities of non-governmental and civil society organisations; the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace referred to this development as a virus-like spread of new laws under which international aid agencies and their partners are vilified, harassed or closed down (Sherwood 2015; Carothers and Brechenmacher 2014). Sovereignty was back. In 2016, Rajapaksa's successor, President Sirisena, would continue on this path when he stated in an Al Jazeera interview: 'We definitely do not need outsiders' (Al Jazeera 2016).
CHAPTER 5
Majoritarianism or divide and rule
It is only if the main Sinhale race survives like a giant tree that the other ethnic, religious, communal, cultural and linguistic groups can live in its shade, without being submissive but all in a state of assimilation. (Ven. Madille Pagnaloka Thera)
Barely a week after the end of the war was declared on 19 May 2009, a UK national newspaper ran a piece under their world news section headed 'Tamils driven out of homes by ethnic cleansing', citing accounts from Trincomalee of Tamil civilians being driven out of north-eastern areas by pro-government militias, killings, kidnappings and the simultaneous encouragement of 'members of the Sinhalese majority in the south to relocate to the north' (Nelson 2009). Sources included an international aid worker and a Western human rights advocate, who used the phrase 'ethnic cleansing' to refer to a demographic push in the East that looked to be repeated in the North, particularly in the wake of war destruction and what was named a climate of terror and impunity. A key message of the article was the observation that with changes to demography, the majority Tamils would soon become a minority in the region. Three years later a report issued by The Social Architects (2012) noted that nearly 100 village names in the North, East and hill country had been changed from Tamil to Sinhalese ones. For the cinema-going public in the South, Sinhala films such as Matha and Ini Avan brought to the screen a visual drama playing out Buddhist centrality in the triumph of good over evil, a reference to the last phase of the war (Karunanayake 2014). August 2012 saw the loan from India of sacred Kapilavastu relics that received massive press coverage when sent on a display tour across the country. The President was depicted as walking barefoot carrying the relics (which are designated status symbols of a head of state) from their delivery by air across the tarmac to the VIP airport lounge, where around 100 senior monks chanted pirith, the Sinhala word for protection from all directions (Radhakrishnan 2012).
Rajapaksa would assert Sri Lankan national interest and international policies through claims to Buddhist references and values. He maximised Sinhalese Buddhist majoritarianism to consolidate, divide and rule the polity. This chapter will examine the force of Buddhist nationalist majoritarianism and how it was galvanised in accordance with political objectives, along with 'divide and rule' measures experienced in the decade after the war. It will include the rise of the BBS and the mass construction or reinvention of 'cultural heritage' in the North and the East, both parts of an instrumental project to build the unitary state in one image. The two themes are interrelated. Following military victory, the centrality of the official state religion was increasingly visible, at the expense of other long-standing faiths. Beginning in 2010, there were reports of both Muslim and Hindu sites being targeted in the North. On entry to the rebuilt Jaffna Library, long the repository of sacred Hindu and Tamil cultural texts until it was destroyed and burned during the conflict, the first welcoming object was now an enormous golden Buddha. On 14 September 2011, an estimated 100 monks led the mob destruction of a Muslim site in Ampara district, claiming that it was wrongly placed on land that had belonged to Sinhalese Buddhists for over 2,000 years. Police were present during the attack. An annual Hindu festival at the Munneswaran temple in Puttalam was disrupted in August 2011 with a resulting furore over animal sacrifice, as this is against Buddhist teaching. With the Department of Archaeology now coming under the Ministry of Defence, numerous 're'-constructions of Buddhist shrines were under way in the North and East of the country. The following year saw the destruction of the mosque and eviction of families at Anuradhapura, allegedly with the involvement of Buddhist monks. In April 2012, the Sri Lankan government ordered a mosque to relocate when Buddhist monks in Dambulla threatened to demolish it. Minority Rights Group International (2012) expressed concern over reports that 'up to 2000 Sinhala Buddhists, including members of the clergy, protested outside and attacked the mosque.'
It is noteworthy that the thrust of these events was bold and well reported internationally, at the very time when Sri Lanka was due to take on both the hosting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM) and the role of chair for the Commonwealth of Nations. Concern over rising levels of religious violence and attacks against places of worship was brought to the attention of the President by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief in May 2012. The Commonwealth Charter was adopted and announced by all Commonwealth member states in March 2013; this was the first time in its sixty-four-year history that the Commonwealth set out its core values in a single, unified document text agreed by all Commonwealth heads of government (including Rajapaksa). Principles in the charter included freedom of expression (also enshrined in Article 14 of the Sri Lankan constitution) and tolerance, respect and understanding for multiple identities.
In fact, as illustrated above, the climate under this presidency was already severely tainted by repressive policies and constraints on expression. In his 2006 speech to the nation, in which he equated opposition to government policies with support for terrorism, the President had an interesting choice of words:
I ask this of all political parties, all media, and all people's organizations. You decide whether you should be with a handful of terrorists or with the common man who is in the majority. You clearly must choose between these two sides.
Considering majoritarianism
With its island-based Sinhalese population in the numerical majority, and the national minority Tamils having wide group affinity in the wider South Asia region (particularly Tamil Nadu), Sri Lanka has long offered an example of double asymmetries in power relations – contexts in which, from one frame of reference, the perceived balance of power is tilted in favour of one particular group over another. However, from another perspective, the perceived balance of power is reversed. This situation, popularly known as an issue of 'double minorities', means that each group can justifiably feel outnumbered by some other group, depending on the geographical frame of reference. The Sinhalese are a majority on the island but a minority globally. The Tamils are a minority in-country and a majority internationally. Case studies (as in Northern Ireland or Israel) indicate that the perception of being outnumbered can arouse not only concerns with social identity but also feelings of vulnerability to danger (Schaller and Abeysinghe 2006). When observing meetings with the Executive between 2009 and 2012, the author frequently heard expressed the belief that Sinhalese status as a world minority made it difficult to counter global Tamil propaganda; 'with tens of millions of Tamils worldwide, the Sinhala voice is easily drowned out'.
The subject of majoritarianism is found within democratic political theory; as a facet of electoral democracies requiring management constitutionally; and through legislation assuring minority groups of their rights and access to the benefits of living in a particular society. Historically, the word carries with it the politics of entitlement but not always domination: a mixed picture that can interpret 5,000 years of Indian history, for example, as a multiplicity of faiths, languages and cultural practice, but must also factor in the violent spin-offs of new states such as Pakistan and Bangladesh as a result of critical impasses in identity and power relations. When Sri Lankan majoritarianism is viewed through a political science lens, some argue that the colonial imposition of a Westminster-style parliament 'incentivised' the creation of extreme Sinhala politics and thereby a reaction through Tamil radicalisation (Luengo-Cabrere 2012). Others call for its reinstatement in order to ensure fair governance in the country, believing it a better system for a country in which diverse peoples may all call themselves Sri Lankans while living and celebrating difference (CPA 2016a). The Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance's 2007 report on democracy in South Asia observed the problematic 'rise of a majoritarian ethic' in Sri Lanka (IDEA 2007; Sethi 2008).
Moreover, majoritarianism may be seen as fluid and replicable, like the proverbial peeling of the onion model, in that looking beyond (and within) the frame of Sinhala majoritarian politics it is possible to discern on a sub-regional level the LTTE leadership replicating violent majority claims through the mass expulsion of the Muslim population in 1990 from the North, when over 70,000 were ordered to leave with little notice. Speaking in 2015, Foreign Minister Mangala referenced this upheaval and historic injustice:
The racism and majoritarianism undergirding the LTTE's expulsion of Muslims from the North is not something isolated to the Tamil community. It prevails to this day among all communities in our society. Just as the LTTE was unable to accept a multi-ethnic North, extremists in the South are unable to celebrate our country's diversity – much the less accept that Tamils, Muslims, Burghers and Malays are as much a part of Sri Lanka as the Sinhalese.
Especially since the end of the war, which should have ushered introspection, magnanimity and healing, majoritarianism in the South raised its ugly head. The government indulged in an orgy of triumphalism based on equating Sri Lanka's identity with the Sinhala-Buddhist community, and relegated the minority communities to the place of unwanted guests. (Mangala 2015)
Technical measures to redress the democratic deficit were central to the brief interlude of ceasefire and negotiation, with consideration and debate on political forms such as consociationalism, power sharing, devolution frameworks and federal models. Ironically, Rajapaksa came to power after a heated 2005 election campaign in which he and his opposite number, Ranil Wickremesinghe, scrambled to woo minority votes. Rajapaksa declared his commitment to searching for an honourable peace but rejected the LTTE claim of being a legitimate representative of the Tamil people, as well as notions of any northern homeland, the Norwegian outline of an interim self-government authority for the North, and the post-tsunami operation management structure, in that these would grant the LTTE official recognition. He stated that the much violated ceasefire terms needed to be renegotiated, each plank of the platform carefully designed to appeal to the JVP and the JHU (in accordance with personally negotiated electoral agreements). Pitted against Ranil's pro-Norwegian profile, in a sense the electoral race became almost a referendum on the failed, flawed international brokerage. With a boycott on voting announced in the Tamil North, the very population for whom the agreement might have brought benefits did not vote. Even so, the result was close. Rajapaksa polled 4,887,152 votes at 50.29 per cent, while Wickremesinghe brought in 48.43 per cent with 4,706,366 votes.
Rajapaksa had signalled that international and thus neo-colonial interference was designed to denigrate the purity of Buddhist values. By consistently rendering the LTTE as purely terrorist and not political in nature, he convinced many that only his leadership would bring salvation. In the words of one political commentator, he had a twin strategy: adopt the maxim of divide and rule for the opposition and tell the people that only Rajapaksa in office would see the Tigers vanquished militarily (The Nation 2008). The two main opposition parties, the UNP and the JVP, were depicted by 2008 as 'split right down the middle and... busy wallowing in their internal squabbles instead of challenging the government' (ibid.). Beyond numerical demography, theory on democratic accommodation and Machiavellian political machinations, Rajapaksa and his inner circles would build on and inflate a deep, personalised core of Sinhala Buddhist identity as a means of consolidating power: ethno-nationalism as exclusion. A 2012 study on the teaching of history on the island described a tenth-grade history text issued nationally which stated that the 'history of Sri Lanka begins after the arrival of Prince Vijaya (considered the first Sinhalese to arrive...) with 700 followers. They were the first Aryans to come to Sri Lanka'; the researcher commented that, while the Mahavamsa is unreliable as a source, it is often referenced as history itself (Gray 2012).
Majoritarianism in the near neighbourhood
David Rampton's (2011; ) scholarly examinations of deep-seated collective religious identity note regional connectivity and past fluidity in expressions of faith and identity: for example, both precolonial and early colonial Burma and Sri Lanka saw widespread examples of different religious, linguistic and other identities co-habiting in multiple ways.
For instance, in pre-colonial and early colonial Sri Lanka, Tamil Nayakkar monarchs governed Kandy, the Kandyan Convention acknowledging British sovereignty was signed by 'Sinhala' chiefs in Tamil script, whilst anthropological sources indicate a residual legacy of bilingualism amongst fishing communities in the Western littoral and a syncretic history of Sinhalisation of Tamil groups and Tamilisation of Sinhala groups. In pre-colonial Burma, the situation was also similar. (Rampton 2016: 16)
In Rampton's view, international and global forces in both contexts have been seen as a threat to the sovereign, unitary form of the state and to territorial integrity, with Sinhala and Burman Buddhist nationalists mobilising to reinforce these contours of the Buddhist nation-state. Writing in 2012, William McGowan observed the challenge to Aung San Suu Kyi's political rise from a chauvinistic element of Theravada Buddhist culture 'which encourages a sense of racial and religious superiority among majority Burman Buddhists at the expense of ethnic and religious minorities' (McGowan 2012). He and others used the term 'Burmanization' when looking at internal power and territorial claims. Vatthana Pholsena (2014) writes in a similar vein concerning majoritarian group identities in Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, citing the Kinh, Thai, Lao and Khmer experience of the 'pursuit of homogenization'. A residual undercurrent – if not an overt expression – of grievance in many of Indonesia's far-flung islands relates to the expansive predominance of the majority Javanese population. This was a factor in the Acehnese civil war, with demands for self-determination including language rights and resource and revenue governance fuelling an armed struggle for years prior to a negotiated agreement. Indeed, Benedict Anderson's pivotal work Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism (1983) was strongly influenced by, but not limited to, his years in Southeast Asia. In India, the May 2014 elections saw the Hindu nationalist movement BJP swept to power with a promise of 'acche din' or 'good days', only to be defeated resoundingly nine months later in the nationally important elections in Delhi by a combination of young voters and the urban poor. The promise of good days may have been seen by them as not extending to everyone equally, but rather to a few at the proverbial upper levels of society. Majoritarianism, then, sits dangerously close to ethnocratic hierarchy in terms of application and effect.
Globalised religious militancy in the twenty-first century is a subject in its own right, one that has been examined elsewhere and is deserving of further serious inquiry. Mikael Gravers (2015) points to the co-option of Buddhist monks by the generals in Myanmar as a nationalist strategy to build legitimacy for military rule; this took expression in the slogan 'One race, one language and one religion'. He also stresses the role of charismatic leadership in partnership with political elites for mobilising popular feeling, as occurred in the anti-Muslim riots that erupted in Rakhine State when a mob of young Buddhists attacked the Rohingya Muslim minority. Subsequently, some 140,000 people were displaced and over 200 killed. While it was reported that Myanmar's 947 Buddhist organisation and Sri Lanka's BBS (described below) signed a pact in 2014, it is beyond the scope of this book to interpret this beyond localised synergies and expedient, mutual cooperation (Perera 2014).
Rise of the Bodu Bala Sena
It was ironic that at a time when social media was a factor in the (then) sweep of the 'Arab Spring' and youth were taking to Arab streets in the name of reform, freedom of expression and human rights, social media in urban Sri Lanka was being used for radical hate campaigns and BBS recruitment. Consider the following quotation from a leading monk:
We faced a total blackout from local media. But we are lucky to have the new social media, the Face Book, e-mail and the Internet. Hundreds of thousands of younger people are listening to us and are with us.
BBS has begun an ideological struggle. We left the Jataka Pota in the temple library and postponed our meditating towards Nirvana (this is Engaged Buddhism now spreading in the West). We created a fertile soil for the rejuvenation of our nation and it is time for dialog or debate. (Fuller 2014)
With an incremental rise in attacks on Muslim and Christian communities between 2012 and 2014, and following violent clashes in the southern towns of Aluthgama and Beruwala, there were even clerical complaints that Facebook had blocked BBS accounts, the user stating that he had simply created another one (Liyanawatte 2014; The Sunday Times 2014c). The BBS held its first formal national convention in Colombo in 2012, calling for, among other things, preferential treatment in university admissions for Buddhists and the use of monks to teach history in schools. It was behind a high-profile campaign against halal meat certification and has been blamed for violent attacks on Muslim communities, including in neighbourhoods in the South. In early 2013, supporters of the BBS stormed a hotel alleging that its 'Buddha Bar' was sacrilegious, which resulted in two arrests of hotel managers (not of the attackers). It is understood that, after a meeting between the President, government ministers and the BBS on 27 January 2013, a statement was issued urging them not to be in conflict with other religious communities, but that this went out only in English, hardly the language used by the majority of supporters (Minority Rights Group International 2013). Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa was guest of honour at the opening of a Buddhist Brigade training school, referring to the monks as those who 'protect our country, religion and race' (Stathern 2013). As attacks escalated and deadly riots spread, concern also rose over the official interpretation of them. Ameer Faaiz (2014) wrote that, in the dominant narrative, 'nebulous and unnamed Muslim extremists are to blame. Following widespread condemnation of the violence, both at home and internationally, Buddhist extremist groups and political parties represented in the ruling alliance were quick to shift the blame to unseen Muslim extremists.' His article points to the disturbing manipulation and omission of facts in statements made to the international community as well as to the Sri Lankan public.
Message from M. Mahuruf, CEO of the Sri Lankan Secretariat for Muslims, circulated by email on 8 April 2013
Despite Sri Lanka's ethnic, cultural and religious diversity, the current predicament of growing religious intolerance springs from the rhetoric that this intolerance is necessary to protect the rights, values and the identity of the majority. This mindset has spread due to the efforts of the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) and other groups, influencing their actions and the actions of individuals is such that there has been a wave of several alarming developments across Sri Lanka.
Through press conferences, television air-time and recently, a mass rally attended by 15,000 in Maharagama; Muslims' dress, mosques and the halal label are being vilified. There have been racist posters and handbills in public places, harassment of persons in Muslim dress, death threats directed at Muslim businessmen, desecration of mosques and Muslim businesses, and various public insults towards Muslim beliefs. The government is yet to call a halt to the group's activities.
According to the information gathered by the SFM the hostility against Muslims recorded 21 incidents in January. By March this went up to 54 notified incidents. While more incidents (23) were recorded in the Colombo district, reports are indicative that the phenomenon has now escalated across the districts of Kurunegala (14) and Kandy (10) as well. The BBS and the Sinhala Ravaya are orchestrating their activities through the use of poster campaigns (13 incidents), demonstrations (12) and leaflets (11). In addition, the ordinary majority are also being incited against Muslims through the use of obscene and vituperative messages via social and mainstream media. Anti-Muslim public rallies, processions including a call to boycott all Muslim business (16) establishments and targeting attacks on same have created a tense situation. The Muslim women's dress code also appears to have riled the majority.
This anti-Muslim sentiment in Sri Lanka did not spring up overnight; it has been simmering over a few years due to a few factors; global Islamic reformism effect on the Muslim communities' dress/social habits and reformists' emphasis on piety limited Muslims' everyday relationships with other ethnic groups [and] contributed to the isolation of Sri Lankan Muslims. Also, there is little information available in the public domain about Muslims in Sri Lanka, minimal reference to Muslims in the media generally and now, it is mostly derogatory. There is an urgent need to:
• | institutionalize greater interaction between communities
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• | provide better information regarding local Muslims and Islam across the world
• | engage in effective media relations
Ameen Izzadeen (2013a) reported how at dusk on Friday 12 April 2013 a small group of concerned citizens convened for a candlelight vigil outside a state-owned building that was the headquarters of the BBS. Their message was that the BBS and its hard-line monks were tarnishing the image of Buddhism and violating its precepts such as compassion and non-violence. Within an hour the police had broken up the peaceful vigil and had dragged a few of the more outspoken protestors to a police vehicle, as BBS office staff photographed the crowd. Responses to this included postings from members of the social media group 'Buddhists Questioning Bodu Bala Sena', claiming that the police action once again proved that the BBS must have state support and patronage. A petition calling on Rajapaksa to stop anti-Muslim agitation appeared on Facebook. SLMC leader and Minister of Justice Rauff Hakeem requested that the President convene a cabinet meeting to discuss the unrest and civil disturbance in the country. Hakeem also brought together other Muslim parliamentarians including Senior Minister A. H. M. Fowzie and Ministers Rishard Bathiutheen and A. L. M. Athaullah to speak about concerns for the security of minority communities. The Minister of National Language and Social Integration, Vasudeva Nanayakara, also criticised the police for being lax and called for a ban on extremist groups, including the BBS, Ravana Balaya and Sinhala Ravaya. These developments were documented by Gulbin Sultana, who also expressed the following view:
The current hate campaign should not be seen as only a Muslim vs Budhdhist sic] tension. It seems part of a larger strategy of establishing Budhdhist supremacy over the minority communities. After the end of the conflict in 2009 with the LTTE, expansion of Budhdhism all over the country has been visible. Numerous Buddhist Viharas are being constructed in the north and east by razing existing Hindu temples. For example, Kanniya Shivan temple in Trincomalee and the Murugan temple in Illangaithurai Muhathuwaram. A group of Buddhist monks also attacked the Foursquare Gospel Church in Kalutara in 2011. In Ambalangoda, the Assembly of God church was attacked in February 2012. A pastor in Kalutara was also attacked and a house belonging to a Christian was vandalized by Buddhist monks alleging that the church was engaged in conversions. ([Sultana 2013)
Alongside the BBS, other groups promoting extremist views in Sri Lanka, such as the Sinhala Ravaya and the Hela Bodu Powura, purport to be the protectors of Sinhala Buddhism, which they claim is being threatened by Muslim and Christian religious minorities. In June 2014, a moderate Buddhist monk who had spoken out against the BBS was found unconscious and badly beaten outside Colombo (BBC News 2014). But a month later, the new Chief Justice, Mohan Peiris, was able to proclaim the Buddhist philosophical origin of human rights. His speech was intriguing in its claims that Sri Lanka does not need teaching about human rights, but could in fact teach the rest of the world because human rights originate with the teaching of the Lord Buddha. An argument thus comes full circle, from a rejection of human rights by the GoSL to the ownership of their origin as being inherently Sri Lankan, except that for Sri Lankan one should read Buddhist Sinhala.
Cultural domination and majoritarian hegemony
As late as November 2015 (post-Rajapaksa presidency), the Sri Lankan navy was reported to have celebrated the laying of a foundation stone for a new Buddha statue to be built in Nainativu, also officially announcing a change of name for the island from the Tamil 'Nainathivu' to the Sinhala 'Nagadepa'. In the Trincomalee district at Illangai Muhathuwaram, the long-established Ganesh temple was done away with and a Buddhist temple was built in its place, with the area renamed Lanka Patuna. 'It was,' in the words of an interviewee, 'like being slapped in the face.' These were recent examples of ethno-nationalist or majoritarian elite production of 'heritage', the erosion of people's dignity and the imposition of cultural messages as domination, relating the political to the way in which identity is made manifest in personal and social terms. How do you reconcile the need for 'closure' on the fate of loved ones, the need to remember and come to terms with past and present in order to build a future – the need for recovery of both self and group identity – with simultaneous symbolic engineering and signals of state majoritarian intent? The production of a new overlay of Buddhist Sinhalese symbolism in post-war Sri Lanka is also intrinsically linked to the effects of prolonged militarisation, land ownership, land loss and land use:
In Periya Ullai (in Ampara) women complained that even to enter their own fields they are required to sign in and out with the military and certain areas that belong to the community have been barred under the claim of finding archaeological 'treasures'. Women used to guard their fields at night; however, now due to military presence this is no longer viable. Many women's livelihoods in this area have been agriculture and collecting and selling firewood. All these activities have been banned by military men. (Women's Action Network 2013a)
The aftermath of war brought with it a marked degree of control over religious observance in the North and East, including interference with the ceremonies and rituals of Muslim, Hindu and Christian faiths: this included priests being told not to use candles or have processions, the removals of kovils, and the takeover of land that was in fact a Muslim graveyard. In a comprehensive study published in 2013, the Centre for Policy Alternatives noted concern raised by all minorities over the 'Sinhalisation' of several areas, particularly in the North and the East, through the construction of Buddhist statues, shrines and religious symbols (CPA 2013). It was observed that militarisation meant that churches, kovils and mosques were occupied in Jaffna, Mannar, Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi and Trincomalee, and that at least four mosques were under military occupation at that time – in Mannar and Trincomalee districts. The following observations of conditions under which the population was living in the North was made the following year:
Land grabbing aside, the military is involved in the economy – from growing vegetables to running boutiques and hotels and restaurants and in effect taking land as well as jobs from civilians. They tell school children the language in which they should sing the national anthem and most recently one of their ranks pronounced on what constitutes 'acceptable' mourning. (Saravanamuttu 2014)
The notion of 'national heritage' is a modern phenomenon, a contemporary creation (Tunbridge and Ashworth 1996: 30), and observers recognise that there has been a fast increasing obsession with heritage in recent times. Heritage on a macro level is connected to the state-building project, developing over the last few centuries through emergent methods of archaeology, design, historical constructions and memorialisation (Aldridge 1989). Heritage is used to demonstrate how a nation has developed, how far it has evolved through art techniques and technical abilities. This in turn means that archaeology, history and art are used to show how long a nation has occupied an area of land and has created a community and 'a sense of national belonging among the entire population' (Carman 1996: 79). The close proximity of Buddhist stupas, Hindu temples, Muslim mosques and Christian churches in Colombo would at one time testify to the nature of a shared island legacy, a South Asian example of the syncretic and the vernacular, which at its best could well inform Western societies about coexistence and pluralism.
Heritage is thus neither a 'naturally occurring phenomenon, nor is it universal... it is in fact a socio-cultural construction, born at a specific moment in history' (Prats 2009). Construction is individual to each society and to the selective politics of that society: what matters enough to be kept, venerated, even showcased for outsiders through education, tourism and international attention. This involves choosing elements of the past for the needs and purposes of the present. Heritage making entails complex exchanges between multiple interest groups in processes to determine which aspects of the past are to be identified, preserved and managed as heritage, as well as the meanings to be assigned to them. Cultural heritage is also disputed, and it changes its meaning and interpretation over time as different social groups develop new or opposing views of the past, conflicting meanings and interpretations, and uses change or even overlap in a single heritage tradition, object or site (Dewasiri 2013). This in turn influences the experience and legitimation of collective identities: for example, heritage tour guides at Kandarodai refer to site stupas only as evidence of Buddhism in the North, not as evidence of Buddhism historically among Tamils. In the words of one commentator: 'The neglect of syncretism in the practices of Buddhism and Hinduism renders these practices monolithic, ahistorical, and unchanging, making them the exclusive monopoly of one race or linguistic group' (Fernando 2015).
There is currently acute global concern about peoples being displaced and their sites deliberately obliterated in war zones, where identity claims are used to subordinate and destroy. The wave of destruction of architectural and literary heritage – from Timbuktu to Afghanistan, Libya to Pakistan, Iraq and Syria – has even been labelled 'culture wars', a sad indictment of damage and loss (Bevan 2014). Heritage also has 'intangible' forms: that is, language, poetry and song, the belief systems of groups that have been passed down over time. This weaving together of meanings and identity makes culture into a target and a means of wiping out or destroying a people or the sources of allegiance and sustenance for particular communities. Along with armed conflict, it is reasonable to say that, in a sense, Sri Lanka is also experiencing a type of culture war; it may not be visible to citizens in the South, but it is in their interest to understand it, as it will accompany the body politic through these next years of transition or non-transition.
Personal and collective grief have their own cultural norms and outlets. The destruction of a small localised religious shrine is one thing that sends a message that both the object and the belief are not worthy. The denial of ritual performance or gathering to grieve is another, and both are an assault on people's dignity. For the devout Hindu, the observance of Maleham can take place only when death is confirmed and there is acknowledgment that body and soul have separated. For persons of any faith, the unknown fate of missing loved ones compounds anguish and uncertainty, creating a void in understanding. A Centre for Policy Alternatives consultation and documentation of 'accounts by war-impacted persons' from Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Jaffna, Vavuniya, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Musselli, Akkaraipattu, Puttalam and the coastal areas of the North and East highlighted the key concern: 'Psycho-social issues remain unaddressed' (CPA 2015). Two aspects of this theme are identified: 1) most war-impacted people, particularly women, were highly emotional when relating their problems, which was indicative of their poor psychological status; and 2) war-impacted people are unable to bring closure to the loss of loved ones who went missing or were arrested or abducted due to inaction by the authorities in conducting investigations.
It should be noted that the treatment of grieving and its symbolic form in the North carry a contested and fraught history. From 1995, LTTE graveyards (known as tuyilam illam or 'resting places') were destroyed by the Sri Lankan military in an attempt to remove any physical signs of insurgence that would inspire others to be similarly militant. But these actions also 'punish' and deeply offend civilians, for whom the fallen were brothers, sisters, parents or friends. So the location of the 51st Division's military headquarters on an LTTE cemetery was perceived by the local population as aimed at reminding them of their defeat in the civil war in May 2009. 'This is a monument that adds humiliations to hurt,' a Tamil teacher was quoted as saying in a news item which suggested that respect for the dead is an important way of reaching out to a defeated people and an important step for reconciliation (Ramachandran 2011). After 2009, there were human rights groups from the South who discreetly assisted village women in improvised mourning rituals: for example, in placing unmarked stones by particular trees in remembrance of loved ones. Households sought solace in private with traditional music and stories in Jaffna. This was despite the ban on 'soft' or psycho-social services (as NGO projects), which has left 'many a potential beneficiary bereft and insecure' (WAN and CHRD 2012). But even after LLRC recommendations called for the facilitation of people's attendance at religious ceremonies without hindrance, attempts to observe Maaveerar Naal (Heroes' Day) and Karthiaai (Karthikai) and the lighting of lamps at full moon at the end of the Festival of Light were disrupted by the military in the North, with measures described in an editorial by Groundviews (2012) as 'The death of freedom of assembly, expression and religion in the North of Sri Lanka'.
Eventually, main road signs in the North and East would appear in three languages (Sinhala, Tamil and English) but even in 2016 the language of administration was Sinhala. At a personal and social level, the imposition of Sinhala on signs and in documents and forms, the denial of mourning ceremonies, the ban on memorials, and the removal of religious symbols were further compounded by the very relationship between occupier and occupied. The need to request permission for social gatherings is a reminder of authority and control. Moreover, the positioning of 'civil affairs' and all decision making within military command lent it a curious similarity to colonisation, or at least it seemed so to the post-war visitor from outside. Magnanimous in their claims, military officers were quick to say that they were doing 'what was best for the people'. Problems loomed in the sense of insecurity, particularly among women, despite such a proportionally high presence of armed soldiers; in the nature of the ruling exercise when presented for wider public consumption or reporting: and in the emphasis on the army's philanthropic initiatives and the implied charitable impulse that could mean that the population was expected to show servility and gratitude. 'This is demonstrated by phrases – such as, "grateful beneficiaries", "charitable deed", "this act of benevolence by the security forces have sic] brought great joy to the children" – used by both military officials and the MOD in speaking or writing about these activities': a juxtaposition called 'Charity and gratitude vs. rights and dignity' by one observer ([Satkunanathan 2013). Doubtless many survivors have retained their resilience and integrity, against great odds exacerbated by wider spatial cultural reconstruction. Hundreds came forward to give testimony when the LLRC hearings were held, in spite of problems concerning their reception and translation. Thousands provided written submissions. Others have undertaken protests or demonstrations, including travelling by the busload to try to protest in Colombo in advance of the CHOGM meeting in November 2013. Whole families from Mannar, Vavuniya, Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi and Jaffna attempted travel to Colombo for the Samagi Human Rights Festival, also known as the Alternative Peoples Forum, to highlight Commonwealth values. Buses were stopped by the military and turned back. When groups from Mannar decided to hold a demonstration near Madhu church, and when families from further north staged a demonstration at Vavuniya, these gatherings were also disrupted (Colombo Telegraph 2013).
Spatial penetration and war tourism
Under the post-war Rajapaksa administration, the process of Sinhalisation intensified, with government-led efforts that systematically replaced Tamil culture and history with victory monuments dedicated to Sinhalese hegemony and Buddhist religion. This included the erection of Sinhala billboards, streets newly renamed in Sinhala, multiple monuments to Sinhala war heroes, war museums, and the construction of Buddhist temples. Spatial penetration has also been promoted through the encouragement of 'war tourism' and pilgrimage, neither of which recognise or include local experience or voices (Mittal 2015; J. Stewart 2014). From the conception and construction of nine commemorative monumental stupas, one in each province, to the thirty-odd Buddha statues erected along the A9 highway between 2009 and 2012, physical imprints have altered space and structure in the name of victory since the end of the war.
War tourism in Sri Lanka fosters heritage sites that engender strong emotions among some visitors because soldiers and civilians were killed nearby, as at the Elephant Pass memorial. James Stewart (2014) notes the Sinhala signs and chooses his words carefully when he observes that 'unlike conventional so-called atrocity heritage sites, there is an effort in Sri Lanka to cover up or paper over certain aspects of the atrocities conducted in these areas. At the very least, there is a tendency to emphasize the Sinhalese victory.' He also points to a problematic aspect of this tourist infrastructure – 'its tendency to diminish and even cancel out the significance of the Tamil struggle for ethnic parity'. Large-scale war monuments to victory alone serve politicised processes of remembering how the victors represent their victory, rather than providing any understanding of the history of the conflict, the reasons behind the struggles of the aggrieved, or ways to move into the future. In his acclaimed 2014 book This Divided Island, Samanth Subramanian chooses to conclude his post-war travel saga by describing a visit to the war museum near the now infamous Nandikadal Lagoon, near Puthukkudiyiruppu. Once a site where 350,000 desperate people were trapped at the end of the war, the target of relentless shelling by enemy armies, there is now a shiny information centre regaled with posters showing how the war was won:
The text on the posters was all in Sinhalese: so was the headline running across the top of the wall, reading 'The Way of the victorious Vanni operation'. So was the text in another exhibit, of photographs of arms and vehicles captured from the Tigers. This was a museum where Sinhalese people were encouraged to come and revel in, and to own, a Sinhalese victory. (Subramanian 2014: 316)
Spatial penetration, then, has far-reaching consequences for the mental landscape as well as for the physical one. Monuments to victory abound, but nowhere is there recognition or honouring of suffering and loss. There are also Sinhala heritage tourist routes for pilgrims, often organised in the name of the Buddhist kingdom. Pilgrims take a well-worn path from Tellippalai to Keerimalai, to the Buddhist temple in Tiruvannamalai in Maathakal and then to Nagadeepa. They can see sacred sites, hear the old and revered stories, oblivious to any tensions among the local populations and military due to the problematic appropriation of large tracts of land for archaeological excavation purposes and the construction of new Buddhist temples. This reinforces a particular view of the heritage of the island in its entirety. The pilgrims will not see memorials at the sites of mass graves, or remnants of hidden detention centres. For those civilians in the South whose experience of the war and its end was different to that of Tamils in the North and East, there is little understanding of any different lived experience.
There is also a political economy aspect of majoritarian reach, as indicated above in the mention of land appropriation and use, the profits generated by touring parties and a new tourism industry. Of particular concern in the North is the fishing industry.
The Australian Government Refugee Review Tribunal reported a large number of claims in 2012 (continuing into 2013) that ethnic Tamils were being targeted, subject to serious discrimination and harmed due to their employment as fishermen. Common associated claims included the following: Tamil fishermen were subject to onerous permit requirements, from which Sinhalese fishermen are exempt; Tamil fishermen were restricted from fishing in lucrative 'security zones', unlike Sinhalese fishermen; the government, with the assistance of the Sri Lankan navy, was attempting to Sinhalise the fishing industry in the North as part of a broader Sinhalisation project; and there was an imputation that Tamil fishermen were pro-LTTE, and therefore subject to arbitrary searches, demands for bribes, arbitrary restrictions, and violence.
Fishing in Tamil-dominated regions of Sri Lanka is a sensitive issue. Prior to the civil war, northern Sri Lanka produced over half of the country's total annual catch. At the height of the war in 2006, fishing in the north collapsed, contributing to less than 5 per cent of the national catch. A 2012 report for the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium states that the resuscitation of this industry is central to post-war reconstruction in Tamil-dominated regions. While there are signs that the fishing industry is recovering, there is a perception among Sri Lankan Tamils that post-war reconstruction of the industry is primarily benefitting ethnic Sinhalese.
Furthermore, Tamils believe that they are being discriminated against by Sri Lankan authorities and Sinhalese fishermen are operating outside of the fishing cooperative societies system that has operated in the north since the 1950s. Grievances by Tamil fishermen are part of a wider anxiety regarding the perceived 'Sinhalisation' of the north following the defeat of the LTTE in 2009 (MRT and RRT 2013: 22).
Division within the Commonwealth
Sri Lanka has been a member of the Commonwealth since 1948, when it joined as the Dominion of Ceylon. As such, it officially subscribes to the 1991 Harare Declaration and the Latimer House Principles endorsed at Abuja in 2003, which outline Commonwealth values. These include commitment to the rule of law, separation of powers between government departments, the independency of the judiciary and the principle of accountability. With its human rights record during and after the war and its treatment of the judiciary, including the impeachment of the Chief Justice, Sri Lanka's suitability for chairing the 2013 CHOGM was challenged by many. While Commonwealth countries took a stand over apartheid, objected to severe electoral violence in Zimbabwe, and have suspended members following the overthrow of democratically elected governments, as in Pakistan and Fiji, they resisted repeated internal calls to have a Commissioner for Human Rights. Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma consistently supported Colombo, in spite of divided opinion among members and public calls to shift the meeting (Cowell 2013). An open letter from seven NGOs, including the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, reminded him of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) agreement to address all serious or persistent violations of the organisation's stated values (CIVICUS et al. 2012).
When the CHOGM was finally held between 15 and 17 November 2013 in Colombo, it had the lowest attendance recorded at the event to date: twenty-seven of fifty-three heads of government attended. Prime ministers from Mauritius, India and Canada declined to attend. David Cameron made a point of visiting Jaffna in a high-profile bid to acknowledge concerns over land and disappearances in the North. There was private, anecdotal speculation about whether US officials had briefed him or had gained a tacit understanding that he would make use of the Commonwealth opportunity to publicly signal a stronger move towards putting pressure on the GoSL for accountability. Women who travelled from as far as Mullaitivu to protest about the lack of action on their missing loved ones made their point, and were beaten by the police upon the Prime Minister's departure; unrepentant, they were still at work advocating for answers three years later. Subsequently, in an unprecedented statement, China spoke out on human rights, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang stating that 'what is important is that the relevant country should make efforts to protect and promote human rights while other countries in the world should provide constructive assistance' (Daily Mirror 2013). His statement came in support of calls at the CHOGM by India, Britain and others for Sri Lanka to address allegations of human rights abuses. Indeed, Cameron had stated publicly that the UK would push for an international probe into alleged war crimes (Izzadeen 2013b).
The view of the CHOGM
Malcolm Rodgers, Head of the London Office of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative from 2013 to 2014
The Commonwealth's credibility was already on the ropes. An Eminent Persons Report calling for reforms in the area of human rights, democracy and the rule of law among member states was buried at the previous CHOGM in Perth, Western Australia, in 2011. Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma was branded a stooge of the Sri Lankan regime by Canadian Special Envoy Hugh Segal, as he refused to bow to widespread pressure to shift the 2013 summit to a less controversial host nation.
For the first time in 40 years the Head of the Commonwealth, the UK's Queen Elizabeth II, was not present. Of the 53 Commonwealth members only 27 heads of state attended. The leaders of Canada, Mauritius, and India, all with substantial Tamil populations, were absent. Tamil diaspora groups and humans rights organisation urged Mr Cameron to boycott the summit or change the venue. Mr Cameron controversially chose to attend, warning he would shine an international spotlight on Sri Lanka and its war record.
Just minutes after CHOGM's opening ceremony in the capital Colombo, Mr Cameron flew to Jaffna, where protestors, clutching photos of their missing loved ones, took to the streets as Mr Cameron toured the city. Women broke through the police cordon and hurled themselves at Mr Cameron's motorcade. At a resettlement camp refugees told him of the pain they endured during the 37-year conflict and the four-year military occupation since the war ended in 2009. He was the first world leader to visit Jaffna since independence in 1947.
Mr Cameron came back to Colombo with fire in his belly. At a fractious meeting he told President Rajapaksa that the Sri Lankan government had to go further and faster on human rights and reconciliation and that the issue of accountability for the civilian war dead was not going to go away. Leaving CHOGM ahead of the gala dinner and the concluding sessions, the British Prime Minister issued a very public ultimatum.
'Let me be very clear, if an investigation is not completed by March, then I will use our position on the UN Human Rights Council to work with the UN Human Rights Commission and call for a full, credible and independent international inquiry.' Diplomatic relations were in free fall. It's not often you publicly accuse your host of war crimes on a state visit.
The CHOGM summit was meant to focus on poverty reduction and climate change but the massive global media coverage that ensued was dominated by the war crimes allegations. 'Is there anyone who has a question not about human rights?' asked a harassed Commonwealth official as a visibly angered President Rajapaksa ploughed through the final press conference.
Subsequently, political commentator Tisaranee Gunasekara pointed out that the 'Rajapaksas used minority-phobia as a political tool to distract the attention of Sinhala-Buddhists from growing economic ills'. Organisations such as the BBS, she says, 'were used by the then ruling family to addle Sinhala-Buddhist minds with fear and hate and to threaten the minorities into subservience' (Gunasekara quoted in Ramachandran 2016). Following the ascendancy of the new government under President Sirisena, there arose a new and visible majoritarian nationalist campaign featuring posters and bumper stickers – the 'Sinha le' campaign – which she describes as another Rajapaksa 'initiative', a 'freak show with a similar purpose – incite minority phobia among Sinhala-Buddhists and use that as a pathway for the Rajapaksas to regain lost power' (ibid.). The intimidating slogan 'Sinha le' – literally, 'lion's blood' in Sinhala, the language of the majority of Sri Lankans – triggered fear among the island's Muslims and reflected a residual mentality with the potential to block both political reform and measures for accountability.
CHAPTER 6
Home-grown solutions and the quest for accountability
Justice is ultimately connected with the way people's lives go, and not merely with the nature of the institutions surrounding them. (Amartya Sen)
As explored in the early sections of this book, two models of post-war recovery were prominent following the defeat of the LTTE: the Sri Lankan government's Singapore model, which regarded reconciliation as synonymous with reconstruction, development and the restoration of stability; and the TNA defining reconciliation as devolution of political power to the people of the former conflict areas. And yet over the course of the next five years, dominant national discourse shifted to questions of accountability and constitutional reform. The backdrop was public concern regarding the economy, corruption and social indicators, including a growing southern-based campaign for good governance and the shock electoral defeat of Mahinda Rajapaksa in January 2015 (BBC News 2015) and again in the August parliamentary election of the same year (Al Jazeera 2015). In the North and East, the critical unfinished business of land ownership, dislocation, missing persons and military occupation continued to frustrate many. Incoming President Sirisena was at pains to endorse the mantra of a home-grown solution, just as his Prime Minister Wickremesinghe made a point of endorsing the unitary state.
This chapter will question how the two models diverged, creating a space in which the question of accountability took root and held in a way that added to pressure for change within the country. For some Sri Lankans this meant accountability for personal livelihoods, the cost of living, corruption and increasing national debt. For others it was keenly highlighted in relation to human rights abuses, war crimes and a need for transitional justice processes to help all communities recover, to end impunity and to create conditions for non-repetition. As will be seen below, failure to deliver on a political solution was not related to a lack of internal proposals or mechanisms. The chapter will consider how convoluted the notion of 'home-grown' became in meaning and practice; growing disillusionment with the Rajapaksa government in terms of economic policies and creeping authoritarianism; paradoxical outcomes of the LLRC itself; and the rise of effective transnational human rights cooperation and lobbying organisations that found the Human Rights Council in Geneva a viable platform for a high-visibility sanction of the GoSL.
Meanings of home-grown: missed opportunities and new openings
In a speech to parliament at the end of October 2014, the leader of the TNA, the Hon. Rajavarothiam Sampanthan MP, outlined key moments since the end of the war regarding a political solution to address those as yet unresolved issues that had fuelled it. He recalled the visit of Ban Ki-moon to Sri Lanka in May 2009 and the joint statement issued by the UN Secretary-General and President Rajapaksa. He noted the work and recommendations of the APRC and the President's Multi-ethnic Experts Committee, which had produced a majority report outlining solutions to the national question (Jeyaraj 2011). Subsequently, the TNA had attempted to enter into dialogue with the government between January 2011 and January 2012, but talks had broken down when government delegates failed to show on 17, 18 and 19 January 2012, and an impasse developed over TNA participation in yet another new parliamentary select committee (PSC) due to the barring from its agenda of any discussion of the devolution of police and land powers. In his concern over this and over the treatment of the thirteenth amendment, he had turned to India (Sampanthan 2014).
In invoking the UN, the 2006 majority report to the GoSL, attempts at bilateral dialogue, the stumbling block of the PSC with its self-limiting remit, and the role of India, Sampanthan's words reveal how enmeshed and broadly networked any notion of 'home-grown' solutions had become. An editorial opinion on the developing dilemma was voiced in 2013:
The problem with a 'home-grown solution' since the conclusion of 'Eelam War IV' is that the Government has not said anything yet about in whose home such a solution would have to grow, or would be grown. The TNA was clear that it was to be in its backyard, and nowhere else. The war-shocked Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora wanted it grown to their satisfaction, but by the international community. By the time the government decided that Parliament was where a solution should be sown, grown and harvested, the TNA had decided on the 'global garden'. (Sathiya Moorthy 2013)
Strictly speaking, this may not have been quite accurate insofar as the TNA felt it could not accept what were seen as unfair terms for the PSC. Conditions for planting, growing and harvesting via parliament were not sufficient. Meanwhile, it was other problematic national issues that were growing, rather than solutions.
Disappointing development
The rush to make Sri Lanka the 'Wonder of Asia' attracted a variety of potential investors. By 2014 there were growing protests over strategic enterprise planning by the government for gaming as part of tourism development, so that foreign cooperation would ensure that Sri Lanka took its place alongside Las Vegas or Macau in the list of world gambling establishments. The Casino Crisis, which was deemed the first major revolt within the Rajapaksa regime (The Sunday Times 2014b), resulted from the strong protests against gaming by Buddhist clergy being disregarded. For the Buddhist prelates, these plans were unethical and led to moral degradation. For many citizens they smacked of corporate gain and double standards in the enforcement and following of regulations. With multimillion-dollar deals in the offing, the Maha Sangha (the Buddhist clergy) found its objections ignored, and the JHU voted for the first time against the government. Subsequently, incoming President Maithripala Sirisena would pledge to tackle corruption through a special commission investigating public works, looking particularly at Chinese-funded infrastructure projects, the awarding of non-bid contracts and the payment of inflated prices with kickbacks for officials. Complaints had mounted, for example regarding the four-lane Colombo–Katunayake Expressway, which was 'found to be the most expensive highway ever built in terms of cost each kilometre', with the government paying SLR 1.8 billion per kilometre for the 26 kilometres linking the capital to Bandaranaike International Airport:
Comparing it to another Chinese project, a 50km highway in Kenya that had only cost Rs. 972m per km, Mangala Samaraweera, an United National Party (UNP) MP, told reporters: 'Clearly someone or other has earned Rs 1bn per km on the Katunayake Expressway'.
The $1.4bn Colombo Port City project also came under heavy criticism with regard to alleged financial misappropriations in the deal, after another UNP MP, Harsha De Silva, revealed one of project's major investors – the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) – had been blacklisted by the World Bank due to corruption charges. (Buchanan 2015)
It was not long before objections were also raised about the high cost of relaying rail track from Palai to Kankesanthurai; at more than $4 million per kilometre, this was nearly double the cost elsewhere for similar work in-country done with local labour. Concerns grew over the growth in the jobless total as China brought in its own workers, estimated at 25,000 by mid-2010, which in turn led to labour unrest (Policy Research Group 2010). The government was said to be shocked when thousands of workers went on strike in four of the twelve special trade zones for five days in mid-2011, supported by the JVP, in reaction to proposals on pension reform. When it emerged that four workers had been shot by the police and one had died of his wounds, Buddhist monks took to the streets in a march to Temple Trees in Colombo objecting to police violence. The proposed changes to the pension system were withdrawn (Sirilal 2011). Under the terms of the $2.6 billion IMF deal, the GoSL was meant to trim the public sector wage bill. There was, however, an increasing public feeling that targets for the cuts should be higher up in the public service: that is, on the governing ladder. Workers themselves were stretched, with rising prices and no sign of a peace dividend in terms of better standards of living. In that first year after the ending of the war, government nurses also went on strike, given that Rajapaksa's 2005 campaign pledge to raise public sector wages had not been delivered (Reuters 2010). Instead of any expected peace dividend, prices were going up and some wages were going down. Teachers were required to undergo military-style training that would instil discipline and nationalism, and the education sector objected to this. Within weeks of the CHOGM delegates leaving Colombo, an estimated 2,000 union workers were marching in street demonstrations; by mid-2015 worker strikes across twenty-three regional plantation companies were costing an estimated SLR 120 million daily, according to the Plantation Association (Wettasinghe 2015).
The aim here is not to attempt an exhaustive analysis of either the post-war economy or labour relations within the country, but rather to observe that large-scale infrastructure projects were not always relevant to the lives of many Sri Lankans, unless they drove big cars, flew planes or planned to dock a massive tanker at Hambantota (which saw only minimal dockings in its first years of operation, a shadow of its projected glory, suffering in comparison with the natural harbour offerings of Trinco or Galle). The new highway connecting the airport to Colombo was open in time for the CHOGM; taxi drivers would point it out with pride but only certain passengers could afford the toll fee. A growing form of critical dissent highlighted the limitations of emphasising megaproject development with little consideration for social implications. The Friday Forum consistently wrote to the government and published press releases on issues relating to social justice and economic development. Concerns included mass evictions in Colombo and the displacement of low-income families without the promised compensation or adequate rehousing; reports of police brutality from across the country; the need for a viable fund that would allow the Tamil diaspora to invest in the recovery of the North; outlines for a political solution to the national question; questions on government appointments (for example to the national Human Rights Commission); and the budget and macro-economic trends. With regard to evictions in Colombo:
We agree that city planning and urban development is essential in the national interest. We would also point out that any form of development, particularly that which causes adverse social impacts, must be carried out according to the rule of law and with due regard to principles of equality and social justice. Such development must be implemented in the context of the Constitutional provisions regarding the right to equality under Article 12, the freedom to choose one's place of residence under Article 14(h) and the freedom to engage in any lawful occupation under Article 14(g). The State is also committed to upholding international human rights standards including the right to livelihood, personal security and shelter.
Studies such as Sumith Chaaminda's (2012) Fishing in Turbulent Waters scrutinised infrastructure development in the North and the East, calling into question prevailing assumptions about reconciliation through development, with particular emphasis on the fishing industry. Here was a voice pointing out that development is also a discourse in power and control, with the priorities of communities varying from those of the authorities. Given the lack of linkage between the two and the ensuing alienation, and given the growing structural inequalities between North and South, the study concluded that the current development strategy had served to both reinforce and reproduce existing social hierarchies, power relations and suppression among people in the war-affected areas.
The paradox of the LLRC
There were not many avenues for stories from war-affected areas to reach southern audiences. Government restrictions and censorship applied to both the Sinhala and Tamil press. A tangible southern sense of victimhood may have blunted or numbed curiosity about victims in the North. In addition, there was what Amal Jayasinghe describes as 'a degree of xenophobia' among the local media, particularly in hard-line nationalist outlets. Jayasinghe observes that when the press found it difficult to report directly on controversial stories, it would often reproduce foreign news so that the blame could be shifted if the authorities took exception (Jayasinghe 2015). That said, The Island reported on LLRC sessions in Mannar, quoting a Centre for Human Rights report that over 1,000 people had given evidence on 8–9 January 2011. They also listed key recommendations from the hearings, and noted problems regarding poor capacity and lack of translation (The Island 2011). Tamil reports of LLRC proceedings via Groundviews circulated online and were later published in English on the official LLRC archive website (Groundviews 2010a, 2010b). Groundviews had earlier reported an almost complete 2010 media blackout in Sinhala and English, and that the majority of people in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu had no advance knowledge of the LLRC's visit to the region. A few individuals who had written with requests to appear were contacted; others who heard of impending hearings spent several days trying to find out details of where and when they were to take place:
Requests made to several government officials for information about the Commission's visit either elicited no response or the people were informed they could not attend the sessions. With much difficulty, a large number of women found out where the hearings were being held and turned up in large numbers. It transpired that most of those living in the areas the Commission was visiting were women who had suffered injuries in the war and whose husbands, fathers and sons had either been killed or were in detention or 'rehabilitation' camps. Although the merits of engaging with the LLRC can be debated, according to activists in the area, many women felt that being able to speak about the hardships and losses they had experienced was in and of itself a relief. As has been reported in the Tamil media the LLRC was clearly unprepared to cope with the number of women who turned up and therefore requested the women to make written submissions. (Groundviews 2010c)
In the words of one external report based on transcripts made publicly available, 'almost despite itself, the LLRC's proceedings brought out serious allegations of human rights abuses by various armed groups and government forces' (Amnesty International 2011: 19). The women of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu in particular flocked to have their say, in numbers that the LLRC was clearly unprepared for. Limited administrative support was in place, particularly for translation, and commissioners did not always appear to be sincere in their willingness to listen to or recognise the witnesses coming forward. In other words, many women felt that they were not being heard by the very mechanism that was meant to listen to them. And yet they still came, with passionate stories and detailed accounts of family members being killed or taken away by the LTTE and Sri Lankan military alike. There were widespread reports of men present who appeared to be intelligence agents taking photographs of the sessions. Clearly deeply upset and emotional when telling their personal stories, many of those testifying were also at risk in that witness protection was simply non-existent. Not only did they testify, however, but over five years later many of them were still vocal in their questioning about the missing and the lost. They had filled out form after form for relevant, ever-changing administrative requirements. Moreover, their personal stories were reaching an audience outside Sri Lanka. Women interviewed in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu in early 2016 were still adamant in their desire for information and resolution, many of them citing the LLRC as the first time they had spoken out.
So we have a paradox, framed eloquently by de Mel when she asks why the LLRC attracted hundreds of witnesses from within Sri Lanka and approximately 5,000 written submissions when its very legitimacy was questioned by both international and local actors (de Mel 2013). Working with this question in her own inquiry and in conversation with women who testified from Batticaloa, she suggests that the LLRC, while impartial and incomplete, did acknowledge women as victim-survivors and also provided a forum for voicing information that could form the basis for future case investigations, compensation, possible prosecutions and the recording of a narrative at variance with the official one. Moreover, while LLRC conclusions were mothballed soon after release, it can be observed that certain recommendations – such as the right to information and a call for credible investigations into allegations of excesses in military behaviour (as shown in the Channel 4 video) – had reached the public domain and would stay there for debate and deliberation. For initiatives meant to demonstrate home-grown capability, however, both the report and LLRC action plan, published in English long before any translations were made available, had anomalies. Jehan Perera observed that the action plan had no preamble or background to help citizens understand why it had been issued or why it would matter to the country: in short, it was not user-friendly for the general public:
It therefore comes across as a technical document in the form of a table with terminology that will not be familiar to most people. Terms such as 'key performance indicators', which forms a central feature of the action plan, are not in common usage within the generality of the Sri Lankan population. These are terms that are used especially by members of the international donor community who wish to assess the impact of the projects that they fund and also by those who seek to obtain their goodwill. This suggests that the action plan needs further evolution if it is to become a people-friendly document and one that is accessible to the people in both the Sinhala and Tamil languages. (Perera 2012)
In Perera's assessment, the government evidently was less interested in meeting the challenges of political transformation within Sri Lanka than in meeting the challenge of the international community in Geneva. This is in keeping with Gowing's view that the LLRC was part of domestically driven transitional justice initiatives in Sri Lanka that largely followed a performative logic which served to consolidate and legitimise the regime in the context of external pressure for accountability from the international community; it was intended to signal progress to the international community in ways that would foreclose the possibility of addressing accountability issues. In this view, transitional justice must be understood not as a universalist project, but rather as a set of political contests in which discourse and practice are instrumentalised for disciplinary power, producing the subjects and subjectivities that best serve the interests of the state, particularly in terms of consolidating authority internally as well as possible legitimacy in the eyes of the international community (Gowing 2013: 11). For understanding the motivations behind the inception of the LLRC, such an interpretation has validity. But time proved that the performance was lacking, consolidating neither the authority nor the legitimacy of the Rajapaksa government. Domestic critics both fearlessly denounced flaws in the process and persistently asked for recommendations to be acted upon. Conceived in part to forestall interference from the UN, the LLRC report was presented to external governments and scrutinised by the UN Panel of Experts. The panel stated unequivocally that the LLRC did not satisfy standards of independence and impartiality and that domestic mechanisms were not in place for implementation. Its conclusions did not mince words, deeming the LLRC to be deeply flawed and not satisfactory to fulfil the joint commitment of the President of Sri Lanka and the Secretary-General to accountability (UN 2011a). There followed a request by the Canadian government through a draft resolution at the eighteenth regular Human Rights Council session of September 2011. The draft asked that the report of the LLRC be submitted for discussion at a council plenary the following March (2012). Canada later dropped the formal draft, but the USA took a lead at the March session by introducing a resolution calling on the GoSL to implement the recommendations of the LLRC; to initiate credible, independent action for justice, accountability, equity and reconciliation; and to outline a comprehensive action plan. The text encouraged the UNHRC and relevant mandate holders of special procedures (see below) to provide advice and technical assistance, arguing that the international community had waited almost three years for action by Sri Lankan authorities but nothing had happened.
Growing momentum
Transnational activism, advocacy and pressure had kept Sri Lanka's unfinished business of both alleged war crimes and the national question in world headlines during this time. To mark the first anniversary of the war in 2010, Amnesty International, the ICG and Human Rights Watch joined forces to campaign for an international investigation, with an Amnesty global action receiving more than 13,000 signatures for an online petition to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Many of those signing were themselves Sri Lankan (Becker 2013). The ICG gave considerable focus to Sri Lanka, with research and documentation culminating in its own report on war crimes in Sri Lanka, followed by a high level of press coverage and international advocacy (ICG 2010a). The Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka and the International Human Rights Association Bremen began planning in June 2009 for a response to what they saw as mass violations and war crimes, concluding in two sessions of the Permanent People's Tribunal, in Dublin (2009) and Bremen (2014). The Dublin findings were to be echoed in numerous settings over the years to come: 1) that the Sri Lankan government and its military are guilty of war crimes; 2) that the Sri Lankan government and its military are guilty of crimes against humanity; 3) that the charge of genocide requires further investigation; and 4) that the international community, particularly the UK and USA, share responsibility for the breakdown of the peace process (Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka 2009; International Human Rights Association 2010).
Non-governmental initiatives and official spokespersons also demonstrated concern for post-war Sri Lanka; among them were The Elders, the International Working Group on Sri Lanka, the Global Leadership Forum, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Forum Asia advocacy initiatives, the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, with Edward Mortimer as Chair, and the Non-official Group of Friends of Sri Lanka, headed by Ambassador Richard Armitage. South African delegations to the government encouraged dialogue with the TNA and hosted discreet tripartite meetings between the government, the TNA and diaspora representation (Tamil Guardian 2014). Japanese peace groups and activists were included in a special briefing on Sri Lanka hosted by the National Diet in early October 2009. Special Envoy Yasashi Akashi would later publicly encourage the GoSL to investigate allegations and cooperate with the UNHRC. In India, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha Jayeram had accused the GoSL of war crimes during the final military operations against the LTTE; thousands of students and Tamil political party activists mobilised for demonstrations that Delhi found difficult to ignore (Thalpawila 2014). Hundreds of students demonstrated in Chennai with demands that India support the US resolution at the UNHRC. In what developed into 'a massive upsurge of students against alleged human rights abuses in Sri Lanka', the Tamil Nadu government closed down 525 engineering colleges and attempted to counter a state-wide strike called by the Tamil Eelam Supporters Organisation (TESO) (The Times of India 2013; Daniel 2013). A German human rights institution, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), sent a dossier documenting alleged Sri Lankan war crimes to the German Federal Foreign Office in early 2011, referencing in particular the 57th Division, which had been under the command of Major General Jagath Dias (acting Deputy Ambassador to Germany). Likewise, Swiss NGOs including TRIAL, the Swiss Association against Impunity, filed a criminal complaint against Dias, who was recalled to Sri Lanka on 14 September 2011 (TRIAL 2011). The Australian Human Rights Law Centre ran seminars on the crisis of impunity. While the official government position vacillated somewhat and immigration (including boat people from Sri Lanka's North) was a contested subject, at one point members of the Australian public used Melbourne cricket ground for high-profile demonstrations over the end of the war and the Tamil genocide (Tamil Guardian 2012).
The Geneva Process
The special procedures mechanism of the Human Rights Council mandates designated independent human rights experts to report and advise on human rights from a thematic or country-specific perspective. Special procedures are central to UN human rights systems and cover all human rights: civil, cultural, economic, political and social. Sri Lankan legal experts and activists had contributed to the refining and more robust establishment of special procedures when a UN review was under way in 2007. At that time, a petition signed by more than 12,000 individuals was presented to the President of the UNHRC in Geneva, calling on the council to maintain and strengthen the special procedures. Signed by victims of human rights violations, by defenders and lawyers, legal experts, parliamentarians, and NGOs from all over the world, the petition was delivered formally at an event that included an address via video from Sunila Abeysekera, Executive Director of INFORM Sri Lanka. That same year the Secretary-General of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) had met with President Rajapaksa to express serious concern about what he called a grave human rights situation in Sri Lanka, including new patterns of enforced disappearances and targeted killings of civilians as well as the shrinking space for civil society. Indeed, in the wake of the breakdown of the ceasefire agreement two years previously, some 900 people had been detained following searches in five mainly Tamil districts of Colombo, with the police and army carrying out door-to-door searches. The ICJ was also concerned that there be new and impartial investigations into the 2006 killings of seventeen ACF aid workers in Muttur and the killings of five young men in Trincomalee, with prosecutions of those responsible. The ICJ Secretary-General also called for the establishment of an international human rights field operation to help deter and prevent human rights violations on all sides. A side event on 'The human rights situation in Sri Lanka' was organised at the sixth session of the Human Rights Council by the ICJ and Human Rights Watch, on 17 September 2007. Sri Lankan representatives from human rights organisations joined with Amnesty International and the ICJ, and the GoSL was given time to reply.
The use of UN mechanisms thus had a solid track record and ownership among Sri Lankans. Precedents were in place for civilians and government to enter into dialogue and exchange views on human rights using such mechanisms. Members of the legal profession and advocates for civil and human rights forged working relationships across international networks. Partnerships formed that lobbied frantically in the last days of the war on protection issues, with sister organisations such as the International Working Group on Sri Lanka (earlier the NGO Forum), Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in crisis mode from January 2009 (Human Rights Watch 2009). The Security Council was lobbied; delegations pleaded with US government agencies to intervene. Subsequent shock following the White Flag incident, the killing of the estimated 40,000 trapped in the Vanni, and the ethos of a victor's justice plus a genuine risk to Sri Lankan human rights activists in their own country led to a bruising reappraisal. The role of internal actors had always been to the fore. Now, in the immediate aftermath, many of them were 'too bruised to lobby' and a baton was passed initially to colleagues, on behalf of the dead and the victims.
As human rights advocacy shifted from stopping the slaughter, to issues of accountability for war crimes, and as the GoSL did not make good on its promises of promoting reconciliation and addressing Tamil grievances, the UNHRC came to be the focus for putting pressure on the Rajapaksa regime, through a resolution at one of the annual meetings of the UN Human Rights Council. (Miriam Young, Director at US Counsel on Sri Lanka)
Why the UNHRC? Based in Geneva, there is a context of international cooperation for peace and human rights. Sri Lankan activists regained their voice with strong cooperation forged between the International Working Group, Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and the ICG to lobby in Geneva and Brussels as well, issuing statements and briefings to the European Parliament, talking with Brussels-based diplomats about options on conditionality that led to the revoking of the special trade concession of GSP plus. At the EU delegation headquarters in Colombo, meanwhile, human rights defenders were welcomed and supported. Within the UN system not only is the UNHRC mandated to deal with human rights, but structurally it is accessible to individuals and civil society, through written and oral statements, side events and bilateral meetings with state representatives. There is no privileged veto power; rather, there is an open voting procedure in place.
It was possible for national and international NGOs to use complaint mechanisms with particular mandate holders in the special procedures system, and they prepared comprehensive briefings for diplomatic missions and the press. They also provided wider networking through information given to treaty bodies such as the Committee against Torture (CAT), the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). They provided credible evidence and persuasion to influence the stance of states such as Benin, Cameroon, India, Libya, Mauritius, Nigeria and Uruguay to vote in favour of the March 2012 resolution; and Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia and Senegal to abstain (Rathgeber 2013). The UNHRC adopted Resolution 19/2 in 2012, and again, through 2013's Resolution 22/1, called on Sri Lanka to take credible steps to ensure accountability for alleged war crimes and human rights violations during the final stages of the war with the LTTE. The USA sponsored the resolution with the forty-seven members of the UNHRC; twenty-four countries voted for the resolution and fifteen against it in 2012. Another resolution against Sri Lanka was passed in the twenty-second session in March 2013, calling on the GoSL to conduct credible investigations. Twenty-four countries voted for the resolution and thirteen against it, with India among those voting for the resolution. Then came the pivotal 2014 resolution of March 2014 on 'Promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka', through which the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was requested to undertake a comprehensive investigation into alleged serious violations and abuses and related crimes committed by both the GoSL and the LTTE during the time period covered by the LLRC, 'and to establish the facts and circumstances of such alleged violations and of the crimes perpetrated with a view to avoiding impunity and ensuring accountability, with assistance from relevant experts and special procedures mandate holders' (OHCHR 2015a). In the words of one of the individuals who had worked for exactly this resolution: 'One of our greatest allies was the Sri Lankan government itself, with its 77 member delegation, bullying tactics, intimidation and departure from UN decorum. It was style over substance, and did not go down well.' A member of the diplomatic community privately confided his concern about 'hubris, no offering of good will and triumphalist overdrive since the end of the war'.
The GoSL had protested a month earlier about unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. A report by INFORM (2014), the Colombo-based Human Rights Documentation Centre, gave a vivid picture of reactive measures taken internally by government and security services in the three months leading up to the resolution, through repression of expressions of dissent; reprisals and intimidation of a Minister of Justice and a leader of the SLMC for cooperating with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; the disruption and closure of seminars and events; the continuing repression of journalists; and the arrests of three human rights defenders in the North while the UNHRC was in session. Excavation of a mass grave discovered near Mannar was stopped, some eighty bodies having been recovered.
Acting on this resolution meant the establishment of the OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka, the OISL. Its eventual comprehensive report, which covered alleged human rights violations by both the GoSL and the LTTE, began with an overview of context including the observations set out below.
Challenges and constraints: the Government of Sri Lanka
Extract from the OISL report of 16 September 2015, p. 10
1. 1. The greatest obstacle to OISL work was the absence of cooperation and undermining of the investigation by the former Government. From the outset, it stated its 'categorical rejection' of the Human Rights Council-mandated investigation. It continued to reject repeated invitations to cooperate from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. In July 2014, the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in Geneva refused to meet with OISL coordinator and later with one of its experts, Dame Silvia Cartwright. The High Commissioner nevertheless met with the Foreign Minister in New York in September 2014. The Government also failed to respond formally to a letter sent by OHCHR on 4 December (appended) requesting detailed information.
2. 2. Instead, the Government at all times sought to undermine the investigation by calling into question its objectivity, professionalism and integrity. Between 4 November and 2 December 2014, the Government issued several press statements, called three meetings with Colombo-based diplomats, and issued two demarches through the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Colombo, accusing OHCHR of a series of 'grave inconsistencies and contradictions which call into question the honesty, integrity and appalling levels of unprofessionalism of the OHCHR.' These allegations centred on procedural issues, particularly the deadline OISL had given for submissions.
3. 3. On 7 November 2014, the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a press statement urging the Government to 'focus on the substantive issues under investigation instead of obscuring them by the constant questioning of procedures'. The High Commissioner also rejected accusations of having been linked to the alleged fraudulent gathering of statements and payment of money for information. Following a meeting with the High Commissioner, the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka in Geneva, in a letter dated 15 December 2014, reiterated the Government's position of non-cooperation.
For others within Sri Lanka, proceedings had additional significance. As a platform for victim statements and civil society submissions it was seen by some to become a symbolic memorial. But the challenge remained of translating statements into action at home. In David Whaley's words:
For most members of the Council the handling of Sri Lanka by the HRC was seen as a rare success story. It was welcomed as a case in which country-specific action in the face of serious violations of human rights – and alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by all sides (GoSL, LTTE and government-aligned para-militaries) – had been initiated, against the odds, and sustained over a sufficient period of time to embarrass a regime that showed little willingness to address the root causes of conflict or lay the basis for reconciliation.
This had been done in a manner that avoided direct confrontation or interference. The approach was based on the assumption that the ordinary citizens of Sri Lanka – victims of state violence and HR violations, members of national and religious minority communities, and dissenting voices in the majority community – would not accept the steady erosion of the country's traditions of democratic governance, the shift towards pariah status in the international community and the refusal to restore dignity to the Sri Lankan Tamil community. By providing a space for Sri Lankan dissenters – domestic civil society and the large diaspora community alike – the HRC conveyed the essential message that someone was listening, observing, monitoring developments in the island.
Whaley's professional background and knowledge of the UN system and actors gave him credible institutional insights and political analysis, and he gifted his time working alongside Sri Lankan and international activists in both making a case and advocating for an international investigation, arguing in part that the state was not capable of investigating itself. Arguments based on legality, substance and morality were put forward, and for many of those involved it was also personal insofar as many had experienced loss and intimidation or had had colleagues or family disappear, be detained or defamed. There was increasing evidence that those Sri Lankan citizens and human rights defenders who communicated with the UNHRC were doing so at great risk of reprisals, smear campaigns, custodial torture or enforced disappearance. Fred Carver of the Sri Lanka Campaign documented internal repression from March to May 2014 in detail, noting the Rajapaksa government's use of state media to name and denounce individuals who testified at Geneva proceedings; the arrest in the North of Jeyakumari Balendran, a Tamil mother and activist (on charges that she was harbouring a suspected terrorist), who had been present when Cameron visited and whose daughter had personally given a garland to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on her arrival; and the arrests of human rights defender Ruki Fernando and Father P. Mahesan. In the latter case, he observed the handling of the media, the eventual release of the two men, and the subsequent gagging orders on them; they could not leave the country, their phones and computers had to be handed in, and they were subject to recurrent physical intimidation, part of a long-standing pattern in the response to dissent. Carver suggests that the cumulative effect was a chilling one:
There were numerous reasons for this: the natural effect of exhaustion following a gruelling release campaign, the spirit-sapping effect of the sheer brazenness of the Sri Lankan Government in making such a move (and the message this sent about the level of impunity they believe they enjoyed), and most influentially the uncertainty as to whether further campaigning or reporting on the issue would exacerbate the situation and goad the Sri Lankan Government into re-arresting the pair. (Carver 2014)
In response to international criticism, the government accelerated some of the very behaviours being criticised.
Normative battles
In the popular press and media of Sri Lanka, the fight between Rajapaksa and Geneva was presented as an epic battle. The President was presented as a champion of a small island pitted against conspiring international agendas with the neo-imperial intent of dominating a sovereign people. On the occasion of the GoSL carrying its own Geneva resolution in 2009, an editorial in the Sunday Leader proclaimed a moment of victory and 'one of the most extraordinary diplomatic coups in history' (Wijewardene 2009). Here was that victory being taken away; a carefully constructed edifice being dismantled. It was construed as a new battle. Commentators such as Bandarage were arguing already in 2009 that transnational human rights activism could be used by dominant world powers to advance global political and economic hegemony; that there was an agenda through human rights promotion for the US government, the World Bank and INGOs to export neoliberal economic policies (Bandarage 2009: 204). It is true that purveyors of global governance theory in part point to an expansion of neoliberal capitalism, a crisis of accumulation and systems of economic domination and control: rulers and the ruled. It is true that there has been uneven application of stated values such as human rights, and that this has called into question the normative stance of nations such as the US or the UK and challenges the UN, which itself now makes use of private contractors. But, on the other hand, there remains an active aspiration to systems of law and legitimacy that will challenge injustice and impunity, including wider double standards. International humanitarian law, the laws of war and obligations to refrain from crimes against humanity are designed to moderate and govern behaviours so as to protect non-combatants. Moreover, Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that: 'Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized' (UN n.d.).
Paper delivered at the plenary session 'Does law's global pretensions offer hope to the world?', Law and Society Association, Seattle, 28–30 May 2015
Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena, Sri Lankan lawyer, columnist and author
So in what way has global human rights norms helped us domestically? Our basic concept behind the theory of change has been formulated within the framework of Article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 2 obligates the state parties to ensure an effective remedy for violations of human rights. For this purpose, it obligates the governments to take legislative, judicial and administrative measures to ensure an effective remedy. Most commentators on Article 2 concentrate on legislative changes, such as, for example, the criminalization of acts which amount to improper use of force and violence – the criminalization of torture, forced disappearances, sexual abuse, and the like.
However, what is often ignored is the obligation of the state to take judicial and administrative measures to ensure an effective remedy. A holistic view of change from the law and order approach to the rule of law approach for the elimination of improper use of force and violence requires legislative, judicial and administrative measures. In short, the legislation must be in terms of the normative framework of the rule of law. The judicial framework should also be within such a normative framework, and the government should also ensure that administrative measures, such as budgetary provisions that enable the proper functioning of the judicial process through ensuring the necessary resources, both by way of personnel and other technical resources, are also within such a framework. Issues such as the training of the security officers and their internal discipline could be satisfactorily addressed only within a legal system which is constructed on the basis of such a normative framework.
The obligation of the state to take measures for effective remedy has been sorely lacking but much sought after in Sri Lanka. Given the legacy of 'dirty war' in the country, decades of abductions, targeted killings and the practice of 'taking no prisoners' in combat, how could any agenda for human rights receive traction? National figures have fought for decades for fundamental rights, freedom from torture and freedom of expression. Partnerships also formed: for example, as early as November 1995 the NGO Forum on Sri Lanka organised a seminar and discussion on the human rights situation in-country, attended by twenty-one international delegates and some sixty representatives of local organisations. National press coverage branded it pro-LTTE and protests followed. Peace Brigades International had to escort Tamil participants out of Colombo (Peace Brigades International 1995). At the time, there was no stated government opposition to such a meeting and relevant permissions had been granted. INFORM received threatening phone calls and members of the Sri Lanka Free Media Group were attacked on the street. The UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances reported in 1999 on its findings in Sri Lanka, calling on paramilitary organisations to close their detention centres; the then UN Human Rights Commission stated that the Sri Lankan government had not implemented any of its nine recommendations to prevent enforced disappearances or to bring the country up to internationally accepted standards of human rights (Jansz 2000).
In August 2003, the Journal of Humanitarian Assistance reported on a consultative workshop on 'Unarmed monitoring and human rights field presence: civilian protection and conflict prevention' which examined the SLMM as one of its case studies. Concern was expressed over the mission's limited mandate and on particular human rights issues that were not included. Among these were the use of child soldiers, freedom of movement (beyond specific measures for LTTE members), freedom of expression and the press, and guarantees that the displaced could return to their homes and economic activity. Subsequently, Ian Martin conducted a fact-finding mission in Sri Lanka during which he encountered a strong belief 'that attention now to human rights issues was entirely supportive of the peace process, and that any early tolerance of human rights abuses would threaten the process' (Martin 2003). He reported several practical recommendations for technical assistance from UN agency or Commonwealth sources and stated that the Prime Minister had regarded these as acceptable possibilities. The previous March, Martin had travelled to Kilinochchi to conduct training sessions for LTTE judges on human rights, also meeting with key political advisers including Anton Balasingham. His recommendations were overruled not by national but by UN decisions. It was an opportunity lost, and in retrospect a costly one.
Rajapaksa's strident opposition to hearing anything but the discourse of victory over his ending of the war with the LTTE, in spite of Geneva proceedings that took due note of LTTE transgressions as well, proved a normative battlefield which intertwined with a loss of confidence at home. Having literally given Colombo land to China for the Port Authority project, and having overseen corporate contracts with international investors of all backgrounds who fully embraced fairly rampant forms of capitalism, his protests and claim to moral authority waned. In a curious vein of self-fulfilling prophecy, he even accused Geneva of seeking his downfall, of having an agenda of regime change.
Major turning points
After a new government came to power, Sri Lanka under President Sirisena accepted the OISL report and co-sponsored a new UNHRC resolution in October 2015. It was a major turning point, a swift sea change that many human rights activists would have hardly thought possible. The new President stated that a domestic process (in keeping with Geneva's wording on 'credible domestic mechanism') would be initiated in June 2015. An Office of National Unity and Reconciliation (ONUR) was established and across the country the 'four pillars of transitional justice – truth, justice, reparations and non-recurrence of violence' entered the national lexicon. In the words of Bhavani Fonseka (2015):
The resolution setting up the OISL came about in the absence of any genuine steps by the Rajapaksa Government to live up to its own promises and pledges to investigate. It is also a testament to the calls by victims and survivors for truth and justice and who bravely provided testimony of past and ongoing violations.
It is in this context that the UNHRC must not fail the victims and survivors of Sri Lanka... It is also fundamental that Sri Lanka continues to be on the agenda of the UNHRC with continued support by the international community including the OHCHR and other human rights mechanisms. Although the Sirisena Government has indicated an interest to engage, this alone should not dilute the stand taken by the international community to investigate past violations and support Sri Lanka in terms of initiatives at addressing truth, justice and reconciliation. There are several areas that require attention before Sri Lanka can initiate domestic investigations including legal and policy reform. This includes reforming the Commission of Inquiry Act and introducing legislation for victim and witness protection. Capacity building is also needed including providing trainings to judges, lawyers, court staff, investigators and forensic scientists among others.
Figure 6.1 The road to reconcile in Sri Lanka (February 2016)
In the flurry of ensuing activity, accountability questions were relegated to newly formed administrative streams, with justice issues and, in particular, the missing coming under the ONUR. In parallel, and under the Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, a Consultation Task Force was established to work on formulating mechanisms for accountability, truth and reconciliation. An outreach process for submissions and consultation was intended to allow public participation amid calls for victim-centred measures. Figures 6.1 and 6.2 present contrasting pictures and impressions of the new organisational frameworks (which drew heavily from civil society leaders for their composition), with Figure 6.1 being drawn by a woman leader who had long worked inside the national circuit, and Figure 6.2 being posted by the UK Sri Lanka Campaign. Both are valid representations, each in its own way illustrating international connections. For many inside Sri Lanka the notion of reconciliation coming under the Ministry for Foreign Affairs must have been significant; were measures being undertaken for Geneva, or because of Geneva? Getting national buy-in was a major challenge, particularly in the South where Rajapaksa still commanded a network of loyal supporters and nationalist forces were far from curbed. The new government reassured the public that Sri Lanka could look after its own; in particular, the GoSL did not need foreign help for a hybrid judicial process and the army should not be tainted with allegations of war crimes. At the same time, a constitutional reform process began; this was located within the parliament but also invited submissions, with new hopes that a political solution could be structured this way (Sri Lanka Brief 2016).
Figure 6.2 Mapping transitional justice mechanisms in Sri Lanka (February 2016)
In the North and East, to some degree people could speak more freely, although surveillance remained. The military, while still present in the same numbers, was somewhat less visible. For some Tamils, the UNHRC resolution had disappointed in that it was co-sponsored by a state government that they still felt could not be trusted:
By accepting the primary responsibility of GoSL and other Sri Lankan institutions for implementation, the HRC, despite the findings of the OISL and the recommendations of the UN High Commissioner, had yet again failed to honour its responsibilities towards victims of state violence; it had missed an opportunity to address structural barriers to reconciliation and a political settlement; it had allowed improvements in democratic governance in the south and the transformation of political, economic and security relationships with the 'western world' to triumph over human rights concerns. For some, the whole HRC process had resulted in a process that they could not support and the failure of which would be a necessary prelude to more robust international action.
What was meant by structural barriers? Early 2016 fact finding in the North and East revealed representative priority concerns of: 1) the failure to lift the Prevention of Terrorism Act; 2) continual military occupation, including their economic and cultural privilege; 3) lack of resolution for those with missing family members; 4) continual surveillance by TID and Criminal Investigation Department (CID) security agents, although people acknowledged that their general freedom to speak out and discuss openly had improved; 5) the failure of authorities to release political prisoners, although this had been promised again and again; and 6) unresolved land issues. The subtext remained the need for a political solution. By then, a Chief Minister for the Northern Provincial Council was in place who had not hesitated to use the word 'genocide' when addressing Colombo on the subject of the Tamil people. This meant difficulties for the TNA in its quest for participation in the political process. With these issues still seething, there were even civil society and activist voices asking whether the US sponsorship of the UNHRC resolutions had been dedicated to 'regime change', and how and whether the US would come through or deliver on accountability for human rights violations. Rajapaksa had not delivered on home-grown solutions, but it remained to be seen whether the new government would be any better.
CHAPTER 7
Small state in a large system
Sri Lanka does not exist on a separate planet; the world is more integrated than ever before; if we do not take note of how the world is changing – and I have little confidence that the people of our Island will – we are in for a rough ride. Still I guess 'it is a far, far, better thing' to go to our end with our eyes open than deluded by nationalism and religiosity. (Kumar David)
Sri Lanka's dance with global governance
Sri Lanka's dance with global governance – that is, the choreographed steps taken by state apparatus to move in relation to liberal norms and global institutions – took striking forms in the Rajapaksa decade. The regime found willing partners at times, with the state and the President going solo on other occasions. Consider the 2006 official UNESCO event to present the World Press Freedom Prize in Colombo. President Mahinda Rajapaksa participated in the award celebration, held mere months after the killing of Tamil reporter Subramaniyam Sugitharajah by unidentified gunmen following his publication of evidence disproving the government's version of events regarding the death of five students in Trincomalee (who became known as the Trinco Five). The recent comprehensive study Embattled Media (Crawley et al. 2015: 7) states that Sri Lankan journalists had never faced such serious challenges as during the last phase of the civil war; sixteen journalists, Tamil and Sinhalese, were assassinated between 2004 and 2009. In response to the 2008 Universal Periodic Review, the GoSL pledged improvements in human rights and then took three years to commission and write a national plan, which was made available in English to diplomatic missions in December 2011, with no tangible or immediate action. The LLRC, as we have seen, was set up in response to the UN Panel of Experts report, and concluded that, apart from a few isolated cases, security forces had not targeted civilians at the end of the war. External Affairs Minister G. L. Peiris was dispatched to Washington DC to personally show the report to Secretary of State Clinton, along with a (then rumoured) plan for implementation to demonstrate good will. When High Commissioner Navi Pillay arrived in Colombo in August 2013, Rajapaksa made a show of leaving for Belarus, with state media primed – for example, the Daily News branded the UNHRC an 'anti-Lankan catspaw' – and the President quoted as condemning the practice of using human rights against countries such as Sri Lanka and Belarus. Although the President did eventually meet with her, Gotabaya weighed in subsequently to say that she had been unduly influenced by overseas LTTE.
Mahinda Rajapaksa came to power in 2005 with a narrow majority in an election boycotted by the TNA and the LTTE. He inherited not so much a fractured peace process as a ceasefire already in tatters. In the speech given at his swearing-in ceremony he stated that his election showed that the majority of people did not want the country divided, and that this common national aspiration was the basis on which he would work for a new peace process. 'War,' said Rajapaksa, 'is not my method.' He was also clear about locating Sri Lanka on the world map:
We are Asians. Asia has made a great contribution to the world. I would work in close cooperation with our Asian friends, protecting Asian value systems to make our country strong. I will follow a progressive foreign policy that suits our country.
We have seen that Rajapaksa was not signalling a departure so much as a return to identifying with non-alignment, which had a well-established precedent on the island, and as such his remarks will have resonated for many in the population. The emphasis in his speech on not dividing the country was at the same time a clear signal that Tamil Eelam as an independent homeland would not be countenanced. For some years, the lexicon of Sri Lanka's fight with the LTTE had already been devoted to counter-terrorism rather than war. Consider the 2001 statement by then Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, himself subsequently assassinated in Colombo by an LTTE operative:
There can be no questions that terror in all its manifestation must be fought relentlessly and globally. Gone are the days when a country affected by terror as my country has been for decades, can be told by the international community: we are sorry about what's happening in your land but there is nothing we can do to help because we have no laws to combat terror.
Kurtz and Jaganathan (2016: 94) note that the Rajapaksa government rhetoric skilfully combined counter-terrorism with protection and non-aligned references, which resulted in severely restricting the effectiveness of political pressure, particularly from the UN, Europe and the United States. Nonetheless, the military defeat of the LTTE, virtual occupation of the North and a recovery vision and development model offered by Rajapaksa to the Sri Lankan people (that they would become both prosperous and the 'Wonder of Asia') were followed by an increase in international measures condemning both the end of the war and the failure of the peace.
This chapter will summarise findings on Sri Lanka in relation to the three questions set out at the beginning of the book: 1) What was the trajectory of the Rajapaksa government, in winning the war against the LTTE and seeking to establish a renewed unitary state?; 2) How did the government deal with international actors and norms, as well as internal opposition to the nature of the military defeat and the illiberal measures chosen for post-war recovery?; and 3) What mitigating circumstances and conditions intrinsic to 'global governance' have had an impact on Sri Lankan politics and society? It will then examine Sri Lanka's relationships in a broader international system and look for any wider learning, both political and normative. This considers Sri Lanka's small-state dilemma from several standpoints, beginning with the cross-currents of managing the interests and presence of India and China. While the GoSL was frequently presented as 'playing off' these rising power affiliations, politically and economically there were also conflicted management challenges in the post-war period. The notion of both 'Eastphalia' and 'Southphalia' will be referenced, against the backdrop of an altogether changing international system that has both geo-political and normative shifts. Sri Lanka's systemic culture of impunity and the quest for accountability are examined in the context of domestic initiatives, the UN system and emergent understandings of civilian protection. Lastly, Sri Lanka's choreographed interactions with global governance under the Rajapaksas will be contrasted with more recent developments. There remains an acute need for resolution of the national question.
A zero-sum trajectory
To provide the basis for all-out war to destroy the LTTE, the Rajapaksa government first had to effectively undermine and challenge both the legitimacy and the competency of international intervention, and with it liberal claims of conflict resolution. As already noted, Rajapaksa then turned military victory into a triumph of defeating international terrorism. But he went further in seemingly extending the label of terrorist to all Tamils through the air-brushing and denial of Tamil political grievances and their historical place in the Sri Lankan social contract. Features of the political structure and culture were used to maximum advantage: the executive presidency, the role of the political Buddhism, majoritarian myth and superiority, political patronage, and the reassertion of the military in an occupation and civil administration role. This meant increasing loans from China and non-Western sources while stepping up the repression of domestic critics and civil opposition. With its post-war policy of military triumphalism, the fast-forwarding of economic and infrastructure development, the overriding of even the most basic of thirteenth amendment implementation as reform, and the official denial that Sri Lanka had minorities, much less a minority question, the Rajapaksa regime consolidated power and sought to reposition Sri Lanka on the international stage. It was a zero-sum approach.
Writing a year after the military defeat of the LTTE, David Lewis (2010: 647) suggested three factors that had allowed Rajapaksa to develop the powerful discourse needed for his tactics: 1) the flawed design of the peace process allowed for manipulation of the opposition and mobilisation of a strong constituency in favour of war; 2) the leadership benefited from shifts in global power, taking advantage of the increased influence of China but also of the shift in norms relating to sovereignty and internal conflict; and 3) it made full use of Western rhetoric on 'the war on terror' to seem not only acceptable but also congruent with wider trends towards counter-insurgency. As observed in Chapter 4, the very word 'peace' became unacceptable and was associated with pro-LTTE sentiment. While carefully packaged as facilitation, the Norwegian good intentions came to appear as something more akin to power brokering between two main parties, a process Lewis deems 'remarkably illiberal in both design and execution'. There was concern among Tamil dissidents that the LTTE had become a privileged actor with its own capacity to oppress, whereas a broader peace process might have kept intact ideas of political autonomy, inclusion and human rights. This viewpoint was courageously documented by the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), by civil society analysts such as Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu (2006) and Sumanasiri Liyanage (2004), and in feminist critiques, such as that of Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham (2008: 144), whose words are quoted below:
While I in no way wish to underestimate the importance of two-party negotiations, it is possible, as suggested by Liyanage, for civil society not to focus exclusively on resolution, but to question the practices of both parties involved and change the very terms of their dialogue.
This proved untenable in wider circles. Rajapaksa effectively further polarised what was already a fragile national discourse on whether peace with the LTTE was possible, suggesting that Western states had gone too far in conferring state-like legitimacy on the LTTE, and using national media to weave a toxic narrative on the hypocrisy of the West that soft-pedalled on LTTE terrorists while simultaneously waging its own war on terror in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq (Harris 2010).
Concerning Chinese assistance, the northern neighbour indeed filled a gap when the US ended direct military aid in 2007 because of Rajapaksa's deteriorating human rights record (Popham 2010). As noted already, Chinese military aid was in place from the 1990s. Now it was increased to nearly $1 billion, with sophisticated weaponry including a free gift of six F7 fighter jets to the Sri Lankan air force. Pakistan and Israel also increased supplies. Interestingly, in 2007 the UK's annual sum of debt relief to Sri Lanka was cut in half because of concerns over human rights abuses, while arms exports to the country continued (Phillips 2009). The 2009 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute study on arms transfers notes other suppliers and the importance of a steady availability at short notice of ammunition from Pakistan as a major factor in the heightened government offensive of 2008 (Wezeman et al. 2009: 317). It is the conclusion of the authors that the ready availability of arms imports to Sri Lanka 'were enough to make the government confident that it could abandon an internationally brokered ceasefire and opt instead for a military solution' (ibid.: 320).
Dealing with international actors and norms and internal opposition
Defiant in its victory and adamant of its just nature, the Rajapaksa government saw itself as having defeated both its internal enemy and unwanted interference from abroad. 'No Foreign Power could switch things on or off in Sri Lanka as they pleased. The epicentre of the conflict always remained firmly in Sri Lanka,' stated the introduction to the book on Gotabaya's war (Chandraprema 2012: 10). Permanent Representative to the UN Kohona was adamant and consistent in his message that sovereignty must be respected and that the UN must support governments of states, for they had the remit for civilian protection. This book has demonstrated how the GoSL utilised public relations firms for self-promotion under Rajapaksa; they employed consciously named 'anti-hegemonic diplomacy' in the UN, Geneva and New York, and strove for continual reactive image management. Northern Provincial Council elections were held partly due to intense pressure from India, Japan and the US (ICG 2013) and seemed to be timed in step with news management in advance of the CHOGM. In the build-up to the Geneva vote the following year, a diplomatic offensive saw ministers assigned to canvass UNHRC members:
Dinesh Gunawardena has been assigned to travel to Brazil, A. H. M. Fowzie to Kuwait and Dilan Perera to the Philippines. Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva was in Pakistan and later joined Minister Peiris for a visit to New Delhi where Peiris addressed diplomats of UNHRC member countries which do not have a resident mission in Colombo...
The UPFA's line of campaign became clear when President Rajapaksa took part in events in the Kalutara District on Friday. He said countries in the west were in a conspiracy to deny to Sri Lanka the hard-won victory against Tiger guerrillas. He vowed that he would not give in to such moves. That strong assertion reflected a hard line approach domestically though internationally emissaries are pleading Sri Lanka's case. That dichotomy reflects what the UPFA Government is today. (The Sunday Times 2014a)
Those same international emissaries also advanced the case that Tamil diaspora communities were threats in themselves. One way of attempting to deal with the diaspora was through South African good offices, initially through secret meetings meant to solve the triangulation of the GoSL, the TNA and the diaspora through 'dialogue'. The Sri Lankan press had a field day when presenting awkward prospects such as meeting overseas with the Global Tamil Forum, presenting this as a climb-down from the official position (Kurukulasuriya 2012).
Meanwhile, the hard-line approach to domestic critics was relentless. According to evidence gathered by the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP 2015), 100 'white van' abductions took place between 2009 and 2015, and a list of forty-one sites of detention were documented where torture was conducted. The OISL would report similarly, also drawing on submissions from Sri Lankans who could approach Geneva direct. In late 2014, an individual was arrested in Colombo for reportedly distributing fake submission forms to garner false evidence, a factor used by the government to discredit the OHCHR (which, in its own later report, would categorically deny having solicited or accepted false forms) (OHCHR 2015a: 9). Along with discrediting Geneva, the message of 'international conspiracy' as a response to external deliberations on human rights in Sri Lanka was a continual refrain. UN agency workers and international NGOs were required to act under the remit of the Department of Defence, and international standards were not observed in post-war recovery operations. When the repression of domestic critics and offensive external tactics of denial faltered, when Sirisena achieved his electoral defeat of Rajapaksa and notional free speech felt safer than before, then domestic repression and deception were also named in the public media. As Rajapaksa garnered his former support base to demonstrate against the new government, Nimalka Fernando's spirited writing referencing his former 'vampire state' hit the press. When the former President went public to make known his opinion of the OISL report (Colombo Telegraph 2015), he was refuted categorically in an article naming and explaining 'five lies' in his statement. (Rambukwella 2015).
Mitigating circumstances
The dichotomy of West versus the rest has not necessarily played out in practice over the Sri Lankan crisis. It was Costa Rica, Mexico and Austria, as non-permanent UN Security Council members at the time, who tried to get Sri Lanka on the formal agenda of the Security Council in early 2009. While the Security Council never passed a resolution on Sri Lanka, it issued a statement calling on the GoSL to fully cooperate with the UN, ICRC and other humanitarian agencies to provide humanitarian relief to displaced persons in the war zone. There were trade-offs, as China, Libya and Vietnam agreed to this only after compromise over an official report on Israel's actions in Gaza (which the US had not wanted). Condemning LTTE action as well, the statement came in the wake of thousands of deaths in the Vanni, already reported by UN spokesman Gordon Weiss as a bloodbath (Leopold 2009). With no UN action forthcoming, there remained a residual motivation – whether due to conscience or professional standards among staff within the system – to press for the Secretary-General's subsequent visit to Colombo and the creation of a Panel of Experts. The book by Weiss (2012) had a major impact in challenging the official GoSL narrative, as did the severely incriminating Channel 4 documentary No Fire Zone. Considering the reactions of national governments, it is noteworthy that, as of May 2015, India, Nepal and Malaysia banned the film (Dayal 2015). Mauritius registered concern on Sri Lankan human rights and went on to boycott the CHOGM in Colombo. The point here is quite simply that the issue of how the war ended did not go away, in spite of investment in public relations, media messaging and high-level defence seminars run in Colombo. But Kurtz and Jaganathan (2016: 103) highlight the degree to which UN diplomacy was itself public rhetoric, with loaded references to the responsibility to protect that were counterproductive in the extreme. They quote an insight from the Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva at the time, Dayan Jayatilleka:
If not for these external factors acting as accelerants, the war could/would probably have taken another month to finish, with greater circumspection. The international pressures were too strong for the Sri Lankan state to ignore but too weak to stop the state's military campaign, just as Sri Lanka was too weak to simply ignore the mounting pressures but too strong to be cowed by them. We had to outrun the pressures by accelerating the military offensive and closing the endgame as soon as possible.
The fraught dynamics, the mass killings of that final 'endgame', further embittered an already alienated Tamil diaspora, leading to a stand-off and to many of them criticising the GoSL over its war crimes, while the GoSL countered through accusations of diaspora support to terrorism. There was a similar disjuncture in that the dominant (initially US-led) discourse on the war against terrorism contrasted with the fact that later it was an American resolution that was decisive at the UNHRC. In contrast to the narrow membership and heavy formality of the UN Security Council, the Human Rights Council has forty-seven members elected by the General Assembly for terms of up to two consecutive three-year commitments, holds three regular sessions a year, and can call special sessions to respond to thematic and country concerns. The allocation of seats is along regional lines, with growing importance also given to other global organisations such as NAM, the OIC, the EU and the Western European and Other Group that transcend regional blocks and affinities. As noted, the OIC used its good offices to visit Colombo and speak on behalf of Muslim victims of BBS violence. Moreover, there are now 168 parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and we have seen that the covenant is actively utilised by informed Sri Lankans. Coordinated UNHRC lobbying for the censure of Sri Lanka gained momentum through concerted transnational human rights work, often assisted by the lobbying initiatives of Tamil diaspora groups in Canada, Australia, Norway, Switzerland and the US. This combination of UN system legitimacy and the connectivity of people, from victims to advocates to delegates, proved to be the strongest mitigating factor in checking the post-war behaviour of the Sri Lankan state. It proved dynamic and potent, with procedures that could be accessed and used by many.
When the EU suspended Sri Lanka's GSP plus in 2010, it was due to its failure to comply with conditions regarding the implementation of three key conventions: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention against Torture (CAT) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Officials in Brussels at the time were careful to state clearly that the agreement was suspended due to stipulated contractual conditions and routine review, and not as a sanction due to allegations of war crimes. The principled decision based on an official agreed undertaking with the government was highly publicised in Colombo as a signal of Western disaffection. It was seized on by opposition voices. As for the IFIs, there remain questions on conditionality and influence, particularly with regard to the IMF and World Bank. The former came through with a loan after the military victory, while other donors such as the ADB and the World Bank reduced funding to Sri Lanka. Multilateral aid fell from $502 million in 2006 to $356 in 2007 (Goodhand et al. 2011: 47), but the GoSL balanced this out with other bilateral agreements, in particular easy borrowing from China:
By 2008 in the context of an economic crisis and growing (albeit inconsistent) western pressure, the government needed to find new allies in order to fund the war, provide diplomatic cover and subsequently to provide the policy space to consolidate the post-war political order. The combination of western pressure regarding the conduct of the 'war for peace' and specifically human rights violations, and the willingness of eastern states including India and China to provide military and financial support for the war, whilst in the main remaining publicly silent on civilian casualties, accentuated the GoSL's tilt to the east. Geo-strategic rents were maximized by exploiting strategic competition between India and China. (ibid.: 7)
Ultimately, financial management, foreign direct investment and economic crisis would loom despite the tilt to the East. International lobbying, transnational human rights work and the US decision to sponsor the critical resolution at the UNHRC, alongside domestic economic mismanagement, proved instrumental in undermining the certainty of Rajapaksa's position. The questions of international and internal accountability had clearly converged by 2014, following five years of triumphalist showcasing of the Sri Lankan model.
Small state, large system
The Rajapaksa position was bound up with the much vaunted success of the Sri Lankan model.
Initially courting the generals from Myanmar for the model's replication in fighting insurgency, Colombo watched as the Thein Sein administration from 2011 chose instead to spearhead a return to international engagement, civilian rule and reforms, including amnesty for most political prisoners, some relaxation in censorship laws and the establishment of a National Human Rights Council. Aung San Suu Kyi's political party, long supported by the US and EU, agreed to compete in electoral processes that led to an eventual role in government. Meanwhile, Myanmar was managing to look both East and West, continuing operations with the Chinese for the development of a 2,400 kilometre oil pipeline to run to Kunming in Yunnan Province, bypassing the Malacca Strait. The pipeline ran through two of the country's contested regions – Rakhine and Shan States (both with semi-autonomous armies) – and there were promises of money for local schools and development, plus royalties to central government. In Sri Lanka, the government persisted in presenting the West and the Geneva Process as sources of unwarranted interference, and broadcast its LLRC report as a means of courting favour in the Commonwealth. The China factor was still a key element in government confidence and was promoted as being intrinsic to state credibility.
The issue of Chinese power was raised in Canada during the build-up to the 2013 CHOGM meeting, when there was controversy over the Harper government's decision to boycott the event. Critics argued that there were double standards at work, specifically citing Canada's far more diplomatic and friendly posture towards China in spite of human rights concerns regarding Tibet. This argument maintained that Sri Lanka's relative lack of diplomatic and economic leverage internationally enabled the Canadian government to adopt a stern policy regarding the not-so-influential island while turning a blind eye to identical concerns in decisively influential China (Weerawardhana 2013a: 15). Although such allegations miss the context and specific ethos of Commonwealth membership and stated values, they point to the power differentials in the international system and the fact that the regional big players of China and India overshadow Sri Lankan policies. China faces ongoing internal ethno-nationalist challenges in Tibet and Xinjiang, while India jealously guards against external interventions in Kashmir, Manipur and Nagaland, where its Armed Forces Special Powers rule may be compared with Sri Lanka's Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pethiyagoda 2013). Sri Lanka's small-state dilemma can be examined from several standpoints, beginning with the cross-currents of managing the interests and presence of India and China. While the GoSL was frequently presented as 'playing off' these rising power affiliations, politically and economically there were also problems in simultaneously courting Delhi and Beijing.
Prior to the liberal peace-making project undertaken through Norwegian facilitation, the global war on terror and the Co-Chairs experiment, Sri Lankan governments had enjoyed Western favour. Weerawardhana contrasts reactions to the defeat of the LTTE with historical precedents in diplomatic circles, citing, for example, how in spite of the anti-Tamil pogrom in 1983, the notorious Black July and deaths of Tamil citizens at the hands of both mobs and security services, President Jayawardene was never an unwelcome guest at the White House or at No. 10 Downing Street. In a Cold War world order, Jayawardene was a head of state with a distinctly pro-Western profile, a factor 'that prevented the West from taking a critical stance on Sri Lanka, despite UN HRC allegations that were as intense as they are at present' (Weerawardhana 2014). In his view, Sri Lanka's scope of action is constrained as a small state in the South Asian region, at the intersection of India's southerly neighbourhood and what is frequently referred to as China's 'string of pearls' strategy in the Indian Ocean:
Western powers prioritise their relations with emerging superpowers. Given the substantive trade and strategic interests, Western governments are not in a position to be overtly critical of human rights and accountability issues of emerging superpowers. Cases such as Sri Lanka provide excellent opportunities to engage in liberal internationalist critiques on accountability, human rights and the rule of law, which in the case of Sri Lanka, is further facilitated by Colombo's lack of a clear strategy on the ethno-national question and problems in managing foreign policy apparatus. (ibid.)
The US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (2009) report, Sri Lanka: Recharting US strategy after the war, refers to the 'string of pearls' thesis, the 'Great Game' of geo-political control in the Indian Ocean and American strategic interest in Sri Lanka. Balancing geo- political pressures is inherent in the legacy of Sri Lankan diplomacy. The Rubber–Rice Pact of 1952 is particularly interesting in relation to US structural power and how it underpinned later conceptualisations of global governance. During the Korean War, the US released rubber from its stockpiles, bringing down market prices worldwide, and it subsequently refused to continue paying Sri Lanka what had been negotiated as a fair price. China agreed to buy rubber from Sri Lanka at a premium price and to supply rice at considerably less than the market price. At that time, the US was also embargoing rubber sales to China (due to the PRC's support to North Korea); they withdrew development aid to Sri Lanka for several years as a punitive measure (De Alwis 2010). Gifting from China to Sri Lanka has long been visible on the landscape: the Supreme Court Complex, the Central Telecommunications Exchange, the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall and the new Performing Arts Theatre, to name just a few examples.
On the subject of India's jealous guarding of its preferential first big neighbour status (Behuria 2011) in relation to Sri Lanka, Malathi De Alwis reminds us that historically Delhi has taken measures to block US interests in Sri Lanka, just as it has been concerned more recently to maintain its role as a counterweight to rising Chinese involvement. He suggests a re-examination of the 1987 Indo-Lanka Agreement, signed after the Indian-facilitated ceasefire between the GoSL and the LTTE. Several clauses are aimed at reducing US encroachment, such as Sri Lanka agreeing to review arrangements with foreign broadcasting organisations to ensure that they are not used for military or intelligence purposes (i.e. Voice of America had just set up transmission services); and the stipulation that ports such as Trincomalee will not be 'available for military use by any country in a manner which is prejudicial to India's interests' (De Alwis 2010: 441 citing Jegananthan), referencing the US acquisition of an oil tank farm in Trinco. By the time Rajapaksa came to power, there was a weariness with the big neighbour, possibly on a par with antipathy to broader international interference. We have examined Mahinda's appeal to populist folk memory, to the glorious precolonial past and to Sinhala majoritarianism. Observers have remarked that this brought with it an additional ethos, an invisible competition for influence between the so-called anglicised elite, the neo-colonial residuals suspected of links with foreign interests, and the more grounded native, traditionalist and nationalist representatives who had a more genuine entitlement to leadership (Behuria 2011: 743). This would explain in part the cool response to India's proposed economic partnership agreement. As a small state, Sri Lanka was asserting independence in relation to historical ties:
MR Mahinda Rajapaksa] emerged as perhaps the only Sri Lankan leader who managed to achieve some strategic autonomy in conducting his country's foreign policy vis-à-vis India. ([Behuria and Sultana 2013: 84)
But it came at a cost. In 2012, Sarath Amunugaman, Minister of International Monetary Cooperation, submitted a document to parliament which indicated that foreign debt in excess of $15 billion had been incurred by Sri Lanka, with China owed $4.9 billion including interest payments for loans worth $2.96 billion and the ADB a further $3.35 billion for loans incurred since 1997 (Reuters 2012). Looming questions on infrastructure and transportation contracts and losses (as outlined in Chapter 6) threatened the credibility of both government and the family in power. Subsequently, in 2015, central government debt came in at a staggering 76 per cent of GDP; 6 per cent of GDP was fiscal deficit, while general government interest payments accounted for 33.3 per cent of government revenues. Keeping up with figures and indicators is a challenge in itself, but in mid-2016 the severity of the crisis was summed up in this way:
The country is currently in $58.3 billion deep to foreign financiers, and 95% of all government revenue is currently going towards paying back its loans. This means that out of every hundred dollars the government brings in only $4.60 is going towards essentials like education and public services. (Shepard 2016)
Maithripala Sirisena campaigned on a platform of reducing Chinese interference, using strong language which hinted that the island would become a virtual colony of the Asian giant if trends continued. Now his government needed all channels open to Beijing for debt management and to sell off national projects to keep the country afloat. As the small state is also now part of the Chinese New Maritime Silk Road enterprise as well, Deputy Minister Liu Jianchao paid an early visit to the new administration to smooth things over. The following year, in an address to the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies in Colombo, the Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka went much further, advising that UNHRC-suggested reconciliation measures should not create new conflicts, stating that it would be ill-advised to put reconciliation before development and observing that policies should not change 'with a regime change'.
Reshaping global governance norms
In his use of the phrase 'regime change', Ambassador Yi Xianliang may have been referring simply to a change in government, or it may have been a telling reference to the much publicised term used when the US under President Bush and the UK under Prime Minister Tony Blair deliberately set out to remove the long-established leader of Iraq. With the war on terror setting new examples of legitimate behaviour or double standards, the apparent spectre of Western hegemonic assault on Iraq rapidly made the international intervention mode of the 1990s suspect. There arose a dichotomy between the Sri Lankan rejection of outside interference and a permissive international acceptance of internal counter-terrorism discourse and method, an environment that was slow to change as the fully fledged assault on both the LTTE and civilians escalated. The pincer effect from 21 January 2009 resulted in 300,000 civilians crowding into the so-called 'no fire zone' within the LTTE-held areas of the Vanni, an area several kilometres north of Mullaitivu and approximately 7 kilometres from the LTTE's southern and western lines of defence. This meant that sustained heavy bombardment and counter-fire created an ever shrinking area into which both rebels and civilians were constrained. The latter were captive between the fighting forces, held as human shields by the LTTE and seen as the enemy by the military. This was watched in real time from world capitals. The responsibility to protect (R2P), so objected to in principle (as expressed by G. L. Peiris), failed to operate in practice.
It was also in 2009 that the UN Secretary-General issued his first implementation report on R2P, further establishing the three foundational pillars: first, that primary responsibility for the protection of a state's civilians lies with the state itself; second, that when needed the international community can be called upon to help build the capacity of the state to do this; and third, that should all else fail there can be a response including, but not limited to, military intervention. The latter issue has been divisive, coming to a head with the controversial NATO-led R2P-justified intervention in Libya in 2011. Subsequently, Brazil launched a corollary concept of 'responsibility with protection' (RwP) and China promoted 'responsible protection.' As rising powers, the BRICS have generally supported R2P but have looked for moderation, careful for it not to become a doctrinal licence for Western-only policies. Thus Beijing supported several UN Security Council resolutions on Syria, including those mandating the UN Observer Mission, the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons, and most recently a humanitarian aid access plan. Alden and Large (2015) trace the Chinese stance and behaviour from non-intervention to selective proactive intervention in some African conflicts such as Sudan and South Sudan. The global governance norm of R2P is being reshaped and rearticulated as a principle. Russia took its own action in Syria, and in practice the efficacy and legitimacy of UN operations have been put severely to the test, as in the crisis in South Sudan and the spiralling violence central to over five years of civil war in Syria. In Syria, the siege of Madaya brought comparisons with Sri Lanka, with critics claiming that the UN was aware of starvation conditions in the town, under siege from government forces, but was hesitant to raise the matter directly with the Syrian regime because of fraught relations with officials in Damascus. This is compared with systemic failings identified in the Petrie Report on the handling of the final days of Sri Lanka's civil war (Chulov and Shaheen 2016).
When this was put to UNHCR officials in an interview, they pointed out that popular expectations for international agencies are often unrealistic. High-level political action can only come from the Secretary-General's office in conjunction with the Security Council. Agencies confront realities on the ground that must always be seen in context and in relation to the state itself. Sri Lanka had allowed open relief centres in the 1990s, with UNHCR assistance and monitors provided with safety gained through 'verbal understandings from both the government and the LTTE to abstain from military operations in these areas' (Orchard 2014: 69). Small zones, such as the 400 acre Madhu site, hosted thousands of refugees of different religious backgrounds, although security was not always continuous for the affected populations. Madhu was shut down by the GoSL in 1999, and the military routinely removed people from other centres who were then subjected to disappearances and torture (ibid.). But the 'understandings' were in operation until the 2002 ceasefire agreement, when large IDP returns led to the closure of centres.
The international norm of protection in delivery and realisation depends very much on the state in question. In the 1990s there was a more widespread concept of safe areas, when ideas of neutrality and consent were still operational, when the idea of a non-combatant existed and governments were not targeting their own populations. In Colombia, for example, in a different war, a law was adopted in 1997 to enshrine the rights of the victims of forced displacement to protection from the state, economic assistance, and long-term solutions. Under Law 387, as it was known, the UNHCR and ICRC were able to provide 'software' for IDP: access to justice, family reunions, and decisions on community needs that were described as 'creating governance' among the affected populations. They were also able to train some 11,000 members of the army in human rights and law.
This book has observed how an opportunity was lost at a time when the GoSL was more receptive to a human rights platform. Whether it would have altered the state's view of civilian protection or LTTE positions and actions is, of course, another question. But in the words of one UNHCR representative:
We need to de-mystify the concept of protection. Counter-insurgency does not do it. This is talking a different language, and there is a dialectic of protection. Thirty years ago we talked about not replacing the state. But you cannot build the state without the basics of assistance and access to rights. It is not stabilization, but law enforcement that is wanted. We must shift the discourse.
This sentiment is echoed by many in post-Rajapaksa Sri Lanka. Occupation of the North is a means of stabilisation, not of development. The law is not applied evenly or fairly, and yet the rule of law applied with fairness and justice is a possibility that would create conditions for a different kind of development and a different experience of society. The same concern is increasingly expressed on the international level, in that access to humanitarian space has long been under threat as an ideal sphere of action. Marcos Ferreiro examines this in a study of the trend for military aid to be embedded in counter-insurgency, and for stabilisation to be prioritised in ways that alienate populations (Ferreiro 2012). Peter Gill (2016) cites an American general who would not call the 2014 US bombing of Kobani in Syria (to stop it falling to the Islamic State) a strategic target, preferring to say that they were striking 'for humanitarian purposes', much as Putin described military action in Ukraine and Crimea as a humanitarian mission. Responding to a Russian/Syrian plan for 'safe corridors' (so evocative of the GoSL's 'no fire zones' in 2009) for Aleppo citizens in 2016, UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura spoke out, saying that the UN should take charge of any humanitarian corridors created in the divided city. Internal documents, meanwhile, revealed fraught deliberations within the UN on whether and how to play an effective role, even in achieving effective access to provide relief and aid to civilians (Shaheen 2016b).
In this sense, we do well to see Sri Lanka as a microcosm for broader learnings – even as a mirror for other regional contemporary dangers of associating whole populations with counter-terror and militarised policies. Moreover, the case study indicates that all-out war does not destroy aspirations based on long-held historical grievance; that occupation does not foster loyalty; and that the creation of gross insecurity on the ground will not guarantee national security in more general terms. Security is not a commodity to be found at gunpoint, nor an abstract patriotic promise when people are trying to feed their families.
Queries for a new era
For some four decades the Sri Lankan state fostered an almost constant state of emergency, with special powers displacing the criminal justice system and undermining state accountability. We have seen how immunity provisions were also enacted in the 1978 constitution during the strengthening of the executive presidency. On taking office, President Sirisena worked to pass a nineteenth amendment to cut back on further powers secured under Rajapaksa. Such was the symbolic power of this act that the Global Tamil Forum sent a congratulatory note to the President and to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe for adopting the nineteenth amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution. Asanga Welikala (2015a: 95–6), constitutional lawyer and expert, writes of how, in South Asia, constitutional modernity was brought in through colonial power, and this in turn has substantially influenced the ideas about the state, the nation and nationalism that developed in the modern era:
While anti-colonial sentiments pervasively influenced post-colonial nation-building, the path-dependent trajectory of the post-colonial state had been set by the autocratic colonial state. Thus the flipside of Sri Lanka's deceptively tranquil transition to independence was that, effectively, the colonial state continued unchanged, albeit with new owners and managers putting the old state to new authoritarian uses...
Postcolonial Sri Lanka experienced state capture by the majoritarian Sinhala-Buddhist ethos and interests, 'triggering a sub-state national challenge from the Tamils, which remains constitutionally unresolved to this day' (ibid.). Contextual factors are crucial, and Welikala goes beyond the Eastphalia thesis to understand the fierce grip on sovereignty in Sri Lanka, which he characterises as Southphalia. He maintains that the Southphalian state is not post-sovereign, post-national, post-modern or post-anything – except postcolonial. He sees the European situation as representing a historically contingent experience that does not hold true in other regions of the world. He also contrasts India with Sri Lanka, and acknowledges an uneven but in some ways impressive track record for the former in managing a type of pluralism, while noting ongoing exceptions such as Kashmir. Welikala advocates and works practically for constitutional 'pluri-national' reform, which could become a transformative reality for Sri Lankan society were attitudes and policies to change (Welikala 2015b). There is potential to address the national question through constitutional change in Sri Lanka, over time. Many query how momentum and consultative processes on transitional justice will relate to or interact with constitutional reform in the wake of the Geneva Process. This will depend on whether a new constitution can become a social contract under which citizens may hold those in power to account. The new government in its first eighteen months addressed some key legacy issues from the Rajapaksa era, changing Victory Day to Remembrance Day (minus military parade) and allowing the national anthem to be sung in two languages. But there are stories of ex-cadres in the North being made to sing in Sinhala by less enthusiastic members of the military. Sirisena backtracked on the UNHRC commitment to international assistance for and participation in transitional justice processes, while still frustrated Tamil communities in the North continue to demand that land, political prisoners and occupation be addressed.
As an operating mechanism of global governance, the Geneva Process matters in that it addresses systemic impunity and the need to aim for improved compliance and above all non-recurrence of human rights violations. Civil society is divided in the post-Rajapaksa era between those who are participating wholeheartedly in the new government's reform initiatives, and those who state unequivocally that regime change is not structural change, much less 'democratic transition', and who do not want to be co-opted by what they see as an unreconstructed state. A film made by Sherine Xavier in 2014 entitled The Scars of Tomorrow: Muttrupulliyaa follows the lives of four Tamil characters affected by the end of the war, one of whom observes that 'The past never seems to stay in the past'. The filming, which began in Chennai, was interrupted when it resumed in Sri Lanka due to the arrest of crew members and the confiscation of equipment. Old patterns of intimidation remain. Indeed, on 2 June 2016, a meeting was held of some eighty civil society actors and other civilians in Ampara, to discuss ways of conducting their own transitional justice discussions and consultations as an alternative track to the official government approach. On 4 June, the organisers were visited by CID using the same familiar repressive and threatening behaviour. At the time of writing, Jeyakumari Balendran, mentioned earlier for her protests to demand information about missing family members and arrested with her daughter, is still required to report regularly to the police and cannot travel out of the district or the country.
A record 193 states were represented at the June 2016 session of the UNHRC in Geneva, with the UK, US and EU holding firm on the need for evidence of resolution implementation from Sri Lanka. However, the majority of Western European and other states seemed convinced that the GoSL was doing as much as possible against the odds and despite the risks involved, and that the transformation of the relationship between Sri Lanka and the UN through the UNHRC was a sign of both radical change in Colombo and commitment to full implementation of agreements reached through Council Resolution 30/1. There were indications that supporters from the global South had already moved on – pleased with their contribution to the most effective country-specific action in the (short) history of the Council and impressed by the seeming democratic transition. There was a sense that Resolution 30/1 was a significant achievement in itself, possibly due to the GoSL/US/UK agreement that took advantage of a favourable mood in the Council, a mood that is now changing. The issue now is that, globally, human rights are under threat. Concerns have been expressed over the human rights situation in no fewer than forty-nine country situations. These include China, Russia and the USA, and cover eleven European countries, eight Arab states, thirteen African states, five Latin American countries plus the US, and eleven Asian states (of which Sri Lanka and Myanmar were the last – and the least pressing).
For many in Sri Lankan civil society, the real arena was now in-country. Others expressed incredulity that more pressure was not forthcoming from Geneva and Western capitals. Was this a case of revolving doors, in which a new government that made different noises and appeared compliant could get away with a continuation of the same structural flaws in the social contract, the same chasm between liberal cosmopolitan claims and patriotic or religious nationalism? How could a state be in charge of judging itself, with the military still in place, an overarching ethos of victory, and divided party politics, with Rajapaksa still in the wings ready to accuse the government of selling out? With regard to war crimes, is it possible to think long term, of extra-territoriality and universal jurisdiction, as in the case of General Pinochet?
There remain calls for international participation in judicial proceedings: to oversee fair investigations and prosecutions, to fight for the rights of victims to truth and justice, to break what has been called a domestic culture of commissions (CPA 2016a). Counter-claims at national political level suggest that this is a slight or insult to war heroes. Yet it could be handled differently if there were the political will to do so. Within the broader UN system, there remains the potential to be more effective in local-level change, as shown by a July 2016 conference hosted by the UN's World Tourism Organization in Pasikudah, a village severely affected by tsunami and war. Conference materials were prepared in Sinhala and English in a Tamil-speaking area, but here was an opportunity to utilise and recognise Tamil, just as there was an option to actually engage with local people who otherwise were an abstract 'community relations' theme in the programme. The international level can reach out to the local if there is the awareness to do so, or it can alienate further. In the region, trends include a clampdown on journalists (later lifted) and full curfew in Kashmir imposed by India (Sridharan 2016a), and, in Malaysia, a sedition law dating from colonial times updated to control journalists, silence critics and censor voices in Sabah and Sarawak calling for secession from the federation; in this context, Sri Lanka could present its new Right to Information Act as a model and could lead the way in seeing that it delivers. Given the deep social divisions and legacy of acute violence in the country, work on missing persons is crucial and capable of touching many individual lives, while finding ways of dealing with the past to forge some kind of shared historical narrative will be the challenge of a generation and will call into play political but also social, educational and creative processes. To end occupation, there is the massive challenge of downsizing and retraining the security forces. The obstacles are many and the burden of expectations is high. It can be difficult to see long-term outcomes and reform, given the short terms of politics and elected office. Will actors in the international community retain appropriate connections and levels of assistance or lose the plot, moving attention to challenges elsewhere? Gill observes that in contrast to the 1990s, with the emergence of R2P thinking, there is now an era of Western disengagement and defensiveness. But in spite of the legacy of war and the Rajapaksa decade of denial and concerted repression, there are still Sri Lankans who strive for the rule of just law, equality before the law, and human, economic and cultural rights. Or, in the words of one young Sri Lankan: 'It is all very well to say the era of liberal peacebuilding is over, but don't deny it to me as part of hope for my own future.'
In fact Sri Lanka's island positioning, at a geopolitical crossroads with its ancient history of co-existence and religious plurality and claim of distinct identity and independent action, gives the potential advantage for a transformational shift from negative to positive peace. There are growing points in national activity since the joint sponsored resolution. Strong leadership could point to a different future and the need for dealing with the past in order to prevent future atrocities. Just as Kenneth Bush observed over a decade ago, there is still no indigenised widely held understanding of reconciliation. This could change. A unifying concept of reconciliation needs to be promoted in both the national languages. Work is needed for reparations including the restitution of land or meaningful compensation for the same; memorialisation which allows recognition of multiple sufferings; and effective delivery by the Office for Missing Persons. The efforts of civil society activists and newly formed mechanisms require complementary action from proactive political leadership through clear messages and vision, as per an early campaign slogan 'peace and recovery of all, by all, and for all', initially associated with the Sirisena government's platform.
Sherine Xavier has queried whether the Geneva resolution was a 'means to an end or an end to a means': that is, was the resolution a means to regime change, or was it meant to break with the impunity of the past in order to achieve genuine structural change and political reform now? In reference to the co-sponsoring of the resolution by the US and the GoSL, another question is simply the following, with regard to 2009 and 2014: Have we been betrayed again? As the post-Rajapaksa government continues to mend fences with international neighbours, manage its debt and its relations with China, resume active cooperation with India and accept new invitations (the G7, the Twelfth World Islamic Economic Forum), there remains a great deal of internal unfinished business. 'The government will be able to resolve the Geneva issue due to its principles on good governance,' stated Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama in a media briefing in mid-2016. 'We rejected the accusation [that] our security forces are responsible for the deaths of 40,000 Tamil civilians during the war. The President had discussions with G7 leaders and other officials. We hope that we would be able to resolve the Geneva human rights issue amicably.' Here is a familiar tone of pushing back, a reassurance that the national house is in order. Dealing with the past and building a new future is a challenge for Sri Lankans. It remains to be seen whether appropriate external mechanisms and incentives will be found to encourage internal reform that will grant rights to Tamil and Muslim communities who have long struggled and waited for them. Some suggest 'leverage' in the use of zero-tolerance policies on sexual violence and torture as a condition before over 3,000 new Sri Lankan UN peacekeepers can be taken on and deployed. Others may seek to assist with redress for war crimes and crimes against humanity, sometimes with help from the experience of other states such as Chile or Argentina. At any rate, within a changing landscape of global governance, and with multiple steps, the dance will go on.
NOTES
Introduction
1 | Ranil Wickremesinghe (UNP) had served previously as Prime Minister (1993–94 and 2001–04). He was dismissed by President Chandrika Kumuratunga for lack of consultation (not keeping her informed about the peace process) and for allegedly being too lenient with the LTTE during six rounds of peace talks. The reference to atrocity during the final offensive against the LTTE refers to the now widely accepted figure of 40,000 civilians killed (Haviland 2015). See also the executive summary of the Secretary-General's Panel of Experts for a documented record of the 2009 killing of civilians by widespread shelling, the shelling of hospitals, the denial of humanitarian assistance, and extensive human rights violations in and outside the conflict zone. The report also recognises severe crimes committed by the LTTE (UN 2010).
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2 | The JVP is the Marxist-Leninist communist party of Sri Lanka. It undertook two armed uprisings before entering democratic politics through participation in electoral politics from 1989, first contesting nationally in 1994. The JVP had used a specific form of guerrilla warfare using killings to undermine the state, shooting officials, civil servants, police and also left-wing activists and trade union leaders who opposed their methods (Uyangoda 2005: v). The JVP unleashed its second campaign of violence in August 1987, soon after the Indo-Lanka Accord, taking the position that the Indian peacekeeping presence in the north-east was an affront to national pride.
3 | The 1983 'Black July' anti-Tamil riots or pogrom sent thousands fleeing the country, and others into allegiance with armed resistance via a guerrilla group that called itself the Tamil Tigers. Many of the former became a new diaspora that funded and supported the latter. Launched in 1976 under the leadership of Velupillai Prabhakaran to fight for self-determination of the Tamil people, the LTTE pioneered the use of suicide bombers (including female bombers); killed a head of state (the incumbent President Premadasa); engaged in 'attack as spectacle' through such acts as the exploding of oil storage complexes, attacks on the Sri Lankan navy, and the destruction of twenty-five aircraft at the national airport; drove bomb-laden vehicles into landmark sites such as the Central Bank in Colombo and the revered Temple of the Tooth complex in Kandy; assassinated dozens of public figures and civil servants; and created a mini-state and a vast international network of finance, armaments acquisition and fundraising. They took to the sea and even to the air, garnering a reputation for invincibility in an era pre-dating the '9/11' branding of terror.
4 | Known and recorded death squads or killer groups referred to in popular parlance have included the PRA (People's Revolutionary Army), Gonussa (Scorpion), Katussa (Chameleon) and Bassa (Owl) (Haviland 2012).
5 | The definition offered by the Commission is of interest: 'Governance is the sum of many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their common affairs. It is a continuing process through which conflicting or diverse interests may be accommodated and co-operative action taken. It includes formal institutions and regimes empowered to enforce compliance, as well as informal arrangements that people and institutions either have agreed to or perceive to be in their interest' (GDRC 1995).
6 | Sri Lankan society, by contrast, predates the Westphalian system by some 2,000 years, with the pre-modern state founded in the third century BC by Devanampiya Tissa at Anuradhapura. This lasted until the Kandyan Kingdom was ceded to the British Crown by treaty in 1815 (Welikala 2015d: 503). Sri Lanka is unique in its linguistic heterogeneity, having eight languages spread throughout this multilingual, multiracial and multi-religion country. The diverse ethnic composition includes Sinhalese, Indian Tamils, Sri Lankan Tamils, Sri Lankan Muslims and unspecified other groups in a population of some 20 million. During the course of history, four language families developed: Indo-European, Tibeto-Chinese, Austric and Dravidian, each represented by different ethnic groups. Currently, Sinhala and Tamil are the main languages, with English remaining the second language. English is commonly used in government and is spoken competently by about 10 per cent of the population (see Wickramasuriya 2005).
7 | Unipolarity as a term in international politics means a distribution of power in which there is one state with most of the cultural, economic and military influence: for example, the United States in the immediate aftermath of the implosion of the former Soviet Union. Unipolarity could also be called a hegemony or hyper-power.
8 | 'The core modernizing assumption, that history brings secularism, a sense of oneself as an individual human rights holder, and the erosion of collective beliefs and loyalties, is fracturing alongside the Western power that sustained it' (Hopgood 2013: 166).
9 | The President of Médecins Sans Frontières, Dr Joanne Liu, stated in early 2016 that: 'What the Geneva convention and international humanitarian law brought to conflict was to mitigate war on civilians, and by not respecting that we are going backwards a hundred years. It is barbarian times.' Her comments were in reference to a surge in deadly attacks on health facilities in Syria and throughout conflict zones in the Middle East in particular. Her key concern was how a myopic focus on war against terrorism distorts approaches to conflict mitigation. See Shaheen (2016a) 'Head of Médecins Sans Frontières warns of return to "barbarian times"'.
| Mark Duffield has previously written on the securitisation of international assistance, through public–private contractual networks linking donor governments, militaries, private companies and NGOs to govern populations at a distance, in outlying areas he called the borderlands (Duffield 2001: 308–20).
| Soares de Oliveira's (2011: 308) study is particularly useful in that he invited further comparative analysis of illiberal peacebuilding, suggesting the following list of recurrent characteristics (some of which would apply to Sri Lanka, some not): 1) military victory or hegemonic post-war oversight; 2) hegemonic election-running, designed to earn international support yet not representing a danger to the regime; 3) secretive formal or informal structures for running the reconstruction process; 4) reconstruction opportunities distributed among insiders and the promotion of an oligarchic capitalism; 5) constitutional change to extend presidential powers and strengthen the status quo; 6) penetration or co-optation of civil society organisations (especially professional organisations) and the media; 7) acceptance of the situation by Western donors who carry on business as usual while deploying a vulgarised version of the 'transition paradigm' to explain illiberal practices; 8) a high-modernist vision and technocratic mindset, with much public expenditure on infrastructure and heavy borrowing; 9) a general amnesty, no 'justice and reconciliation', or else clearly manipulated victor's justice; and 10) a peace dividend that favours the powerful, while poverty reduction is not a priority.
| Basil Rajapaksa, brother of the President who was Minister of Economic Development and an official senior presidential adviser, was quoted in 2010 as having had an exchange with Samantha Power, Special Assistant to US President Barack Obama on Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights, in which he asked her: 'Do you want to know our frank opinion about the US?' When she indicated in the affirmative he stated his view that: 'The US Government is a little jealous about Sri Lanka. We are a small country but we have achieved what the US has not been able to.' This was a reference to the military defeat of Tiger guerrillas while the US was still fighting insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. See 'Lanka defies UN, EU, US', The Sunday Times, 7 June 2010, www.sundaytimes.lk/100627/Columns/political.html (accessed 20 April 2016).
| See Ojeleye (2013: 92) and 'Nigeria's post-civil war reconciliation' at www.igbofocus.co.uk/The_Biafra/NIGERIA-S_POST-CIVIL_WAR_RECON/nigeria-s_post-civil_war_reconciliation.html (accessed 4 March 2015). For historical examples of conciliation in victory, ranging from the American Civil War to the ancient times of 18th-century BC Hammurabi, and the wisdom of Umar ibn al-Khattab in 638 AD, see Foreman (2015).
| See 'Transnational government of Tamil Eelam's parliament dissolved for next election', Colombo Telegraph, 26 October 2013, www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/transnational-government-of-tamil-eelams-parliament-dissolved-for-next-election/ (accessed 2 February 2015).
| See 'Statement by Sri Lanka: 12th session of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, 7 April 2014' at www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Racism/IWG/session12/SriLanka.docx (accessed 6 March 2015).
| See UN Human Rights Council, 'Report of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances', A/HRC/4/41, 25 January 2007; Human Rights Watch (2008) Recurring Nightmare.
| In another view, 'v]iolence it appears contagious. It is like a horrible epidemic. The insurrection changed the mindset of many people, alas negatively, both in the authority and those who almost naturally opposed it, on both sides of the ethnic divide. The reasons for the distinction are not easy to figure. The insurrection opened the flood gates. Sri Lanka never could become the same' ([Fernando 2013).
| Translations of the ancient Pali chronicle the Mahavamsa suggest links between the Sinhala race and Tamils early in the history of Ceylon, with the Buddhist chronicle even suggesting that the first king of the Sinhala had a Tamil wife. There is evidence that in 177 BC two Tamil kings usurped power at Anuradhapura and ruled for twenty-two years, to be followed ten years later by another who held power for a much longer period. Note the now classic translation by Wilhelm Geiger (1912).
| See interviews by Nirgunan Tiruchelvam, featuring Dr Neelan Tiruchelvam, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmDHMdFyERg (accessed 6 August 2015); Keenan, A., 'A new Sri Lanka', Crisis Group website, 18 May 2015, http:// blog.crisisgroup.org/asia/2015/05/18/a-new-sri-lanka/ (accessed 21 May 2016).
Chapter 1
1 | World press coverage of the 12 and 13 May shelling of the Mullivaikkal hospital (killing around 100 people according to doctors), allegedly by government forces, brought widespread concern and condemnation, in light of customary law reflecting Article 19 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that hospitals shall not lose their protections under international humanitarian law 'unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy'. The hospital was abandoned due to continued shelling, leaving behind about 400 badly wounded patients.
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2 | Satellite images released by the US State Department showed changes in the civilian 'safe zone' in northern Sri Lanka, the heart of the conflict between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan forces: an almost empty beach in February 2009, then an April 2009 image showing the same site where an estimated 100,000 refugees were camped after fleeing the fighting. There was evidence that some 25,000 tents were packed into a coastal strip of about eight square miles. Thousands of civilians had fled the area over the previous few days: 'Sri Lanka: satellite imagery of a safe zone', BBC News, 24 April 2009, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8016965.stm.> See also 'Updated analysis report (19 April 2009): satellite-detected damages and IDP shelter movement in CSZ Mullattivu district, Sri Lanka', 26 April 2009, www.warwithoutwitness.com/images/stories/PDF/UNOSAT_Report_Damage_IDP_analysis_19April2009_v6.pdf.
3 | For a definitive account of the final days of war, see Weiss (2012) The Cage.
4 | F. R. Satyapalan, '"Act responsibly or be chased out," Gota tells BBC and envoys', Sunday Island, 1 February 2009, p. 1; 'Bishops appeal to government and LTTE to review their styles of combat', ibid., p. 3. For depictions of the humanitarian dilemmas at the end of the war, see Harrison (2012) Still Counting the Dead and Weiss (2012) The Cage. The former head of UNHCR relief operations between 1989 and 1992 wrote a hard-hitting personal account of his experiences both in-country and with UN management systems in Geneva, in which he stated somewhat prophetically in 2007: 'With the current deadly drift of events in the northeast, the situation in Sri Lanka will soon put the integrity of the United Nations commitment and the soundness of its operational protection structures to the most stringent of tests – on which the international community cannot afford to let the UN fail' (Clarance (2007) Ethnic Warfare in Sri Lanka and the UN Crisis, p. 275).
5 | The notion of global 'norms' may be understood as 'collective understandings of the proper behaviour of actors', implying notions of how states 'ought' to – or indeed might – behave in light of customary and international law and treaty agreements. In this sense, norms function as a means towards collective legitimation of action, at least in theory. For a discussion on international norms and their application, see Wheeler (2000) Saving Strangers, pp. 4–11 and Legro (1997) 'Which norms matter?', p. 31.
6 | The Secretary-General's Panel of Experts (UN 2011a) was composed of Marzuki Darusman (Indonesia) as Chair, Yasmin Sooka (South Africa) and Steven Ratner (United States). It was tasked with investigating and advising on any alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during conduct at the end of the war in Sri Lanka. Never recognised as official by the GoSL (who called it the Darusman Report), it attracted great interest and publicity internationally. See, for example, 'Sri Lanka: UN says army shelling killed civilians', BBC News, 26 April 2011, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13190576. This account states: '"Tens of thousands lost their lives from January to May 2009, many of whom died anonymously in the carnage of the final few days," said the panel, which was headed by a former Indonesian attorney general.'
7 | Protests, demonstrations and public fasting had been ongoing for the previous two months or more across the world: in Canada, throughout Tamil Nadu, in Australia – particularly Sydney and Melbourne – in New York, Oslo, Paris, Amsterdam and the UK. See 'Diaspora Tamils protest, fast in increasing numbers; call for ceasefire', Tamil Guardian, 14 April 2009, www.tamilguardian.com/article.asp?articleid=2281 (accessed 1 June 2012).
8 | Even at the height of the war against the Tamil Tigers in May 2009, India was aware that it would not be prudent to expect Rajapaksa to keep his promise on '13th plus'. A WikiLeaks cable revealed that the US sought a bigger role in pushing a political solution for Tamils but was kept at bay by India. According to the cable, then Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon told the US Embassy Chargé d'Affaires Peter Burleigh on 15 May 2009 that the Sri Lankan government had reassured India that 'the government would focus on the implementation of the 13th Amendment Plus as soon as possible, but Menon was skeptical' (207268: confidential, 15 May 2009; see Senadhira 2013).
9 | Election results indicated that Rajapaksa had drawn on a support base in Sinhalese majority districts, with a showing of 57.88 per cent of countryside votes. Fonseka brought in a respectable 40.15 per cent with backing from most Tamil and Muslim parties, providing evidence of support for his platform despite his wartime conduct. It also indicated a failure to address or respond to 'the Tamil community's deep alienation from the UPFA regime' (Uyangoda 2011b: 132).
| Interviews, Colombo, September 2009. It is estimated that between 2009 and 2014 some 16 per cent of Sri Lankan imports originated from China, whereas Sri Lanka's own exports to China remained stagnant at 1.2 per cent of its total exports. Sri Lanka's total exports to India, however, rose from 1 to 6 per cent of its total exports during the same period.
| Abeyratne cites a youth unemployment rate in 1973 of 65.5 per cent and notes the mobilising factor of exclusion and blocked aspirations that coincided with liberalisation from 1977 onward. See Sirimal Abeyratne (2002) 'Economic roots of political conflict: the case of Sri Lanka', <https://taxpolicy.crawford.anu.edu.au/acde/asarc/pdf/papers/2002/WP2002_03.pdf>. See also Little and Hettige (2014) Globalization, Employment and Education in Sri Lanka, which notes that, while the seeds of conflict predated economic reform, the process of liberalisation both sharpened inequalities and created new ones, for both Sinhalese and Tamil youth. For an examination of how both the JVP and the LTTE have been the products of the failures of the socio-economic and political development of Sri Lanka, see Samaranayake (2008) Political Violence in Sri Lanka 1971–1987, p. 282.
| While the shared experience of discrimination led some Muslim youth early on to join the struggle of 'the Tamil-speaking people' in the North and East, Muslim support soon fell off as militancy was increasingly defined in narrower Tamil nationalist terms. By the mid- to late 1980s, tensions between Tamils and Muslims in the North and East were running high amid LTTE attempts to extort Muslim businesses and frequent clashes, with the security forces reportedly backing Muslims in some incidents. As mutual distrust grew, the Tigers launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing in 1990 (ICG 2011a: 9).
| Rwanda under President Kagame also sought to take Singapore's best practices into their post-genocide recovery process, drawing on Singaporean experts to help the Rwandan government reform its social security provisions and strengthen both the public and private sector workforce. The Singapore Cooperation Enterprise, a state body that focuses on public sector cooperation and exporting Singapore's model of economic and governmental development, agreed in 2008 to help Rwanda develop its public sector capacity through a memorandum of understanding signed with the Rwandan Strategy and Policy Unit. See 'The city-state releases Africa's potential with skillful aid and trade', Africa Confidential 1(8), 6 November 2008. Abstract available at: www.africa-confidential.com/article-preview/id/10114/The_wealthy_autocratic_model. Hewage argues that Sri Lanka and Rwanda each elicit a sense of victimhood upon which their respective foreign policies have been built. In the case of Sri Lanka, its foreign policy has largely been based on the fact that it is victimised by the constant threat of terrorism, while Rwanda invokes its experience of genocide. Therefore, it is argued that both countries adopt a foreign policy agenda based on victimhood: hence the introduction of 'victimism' into the theoretical deliberations of foreign policy analysis. See Hewage (2014) 'Victim politics and post-conflict foreign policy in Rwanda and Sri Lanka'.
| Quotation from Nimal Siripala de Silva.
| W. Jayamaha (Mahawewa), 'Singapore is role model for Sri Lanka to fight bribery and corruption', letter to the editor, The Sunday Times, 11 April 2010.
| Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu (2010) wrote: 'Peace without unity, unity without reconciliation, and reconciliation without accountability – these are the dilemmas that both the regime and society will have to bridge if Sri Lanka is to fully grasp the historic opportunity presented by the end of the war. Only then can Sri Lanka transform from a post-war environment to a post-conflict period of growth and reconciliation.'
| Stuart J. Kaufman takes this definition in turn from Bar-Tal and Bennink (2004) 'The nature of reconciliation as an outcome and as a process'. Another definition would be: 'Reconciliation is a societal process that involves mutual acknowledgment of past suffering and the changing of destructive attitudes and behavior into constructive relationships toward sustainable peace' (Brounéus (2003) Reconciliation).
| During the final phase of the war, it is thought that thousands of LTTE combatants surrendered to the military and were kept in high-security holding centres, to be investigated and vetted by multiple divisions of the security establishment – the Military Intelligence Unit, Criminal Investigation Unit, Terrorist Investigation Unit and so forth – before they were moved to detention centres called Protective Accommodation Rehabilitation Centres (PARCs) in Jaffna, Polonnaruwa and Vavuniya. Part of their intended rehabilitation revolved around a questionnaire including 150 questions; this was later obtained by the human rights NGO The Social Architects. The Social Architects analysed the questions, finding them to be leading, 'invasive', poorly worded and confusing. The questionnaire was loaded with personal queries and tasks of assessing statements such as 'Those who elect Tamil members of parliament are LTTE supporters' or 'Those who do not follow Tamil Tigers will be punished', with no clarity whether this meant during the war or afterwards, or in the future. See <http://groundviews.org/2012/06/24/post-war-sri-lankas-thought-police-the-rehabilitation-of-ex-combatants-and-the-denigration-of-tamil-identity-part-two/>. After filling out the questionnaire, former cadres would be eligible for release, receiving an identity card from the International Organization for Migration stating that the individual had been rehabilitated.
| PowerPoint performance attended by author; interviews, Colombo and Jaffna, September 2010.
| The study and the quoted comment refer to Sri Lankan society in all its diversity and need. The following personal notes from a 2010 visit by the author to Jaffna may also be of interest:
We heard the phrase 'one country, two nations' repeatedly. We did not hear claims to a homeland or stated interest in war crime prosecutions... rather the fears are that civil liberties continue to be under assault and identity denied. 'Why?' (for example) do NGO affairs come under the Ministry of Defence; 'Why?' is there virtually nothing for rehabilitation in the 2011 budget? 'Why' do current development discussions continue to exclude local representation, while planning procedures are perceived as a corrupt mockery? Concern over land and colonisation were expressed. The new budget allows for a grant of 100,000 rupees to every soldier who has a third child – given that the vast majority of the army is Sinhalese this sends a message of demographic incentive... Thirty per cent of the Jaffna peninsula is currently high security zoned; covering areas where fourteen villages once existed and arable land languishes. A disturbing contradiction has emerged in which the police are now unarmed, but local armed militias and unidentified criminal elements create insecurity among the people. Moreover, a nostalgia for the 'old days' is expressed: i.e. an era when the LTTE (however heavy handed with critics or platform) provided a type of rule of law under which the vulnerable felt secure and domestic/petty crime was dealt with. In a Tamil-speaking community the police and army are still Sinhalese-speaking.
| Laksiri Fernando, 'Three years on, reconciliation is getting too late', Colombo Telegraph, 18 May 2012, quoted in Keerawella (2013: 13).
Chapter 2
1 | Under the Rajapaksa government, the Urban Development Authority and the Land Reclamation and Development Board were taken over by the Defence Ministry, controlled by Gotabaya Rajapaksa, one of the President's brothers. A first stage for urban renewal was the removal of more than 135,000 poor families from Colombo City. Thousands of families have been evicted from Slave Island, Dematagoda, Appalwatta and Ibbawatta during the past six years. The Defence Ministry mobilised the security forces to intimidate anyone opposing the evictions. Most of those evicted have not been provided with permanent homes. See V. Peiris 'Sri Lanka: evicted Colombo shanty dwellers face desperate situation', World Socialist Web Site, 9 May 2015, www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/05/09/evic-m09.html. For an articulate critique of accelerated inequality and the use of the military to both clear people from land and then build on it, see S. Wijesiriwardena, 'Keep off the grass', Groundviews, 8 May 2014, <http://groundviews.org/2014/05/08/keep-off-the-grass/>. For an insight into how the navy took on park management, see J. de Silva, 'Now navy moves to supervise Viharamadevi Park', The Island, 8 May 2011, www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=24930.
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2 | Guruparan points out, however, that the 'parliamentary versus presidential' debate constructs a neat dichotomy between parliamentary and presidential forms of government that does not necessarily exist in practice. He cites comparative studies documenting a trend in 'modern media democracies' towards the personalisation of politics, almost regardless of formal governance system. It is wise to consider how important a variable the intersection of personality and political system will always be (see Poguntke and Webb (2005) The Presidentialisation of Politics). At the same time, his work references Sri Lankan colonial history, and the way in which the executive committee system brought in by the Donoughmore Constitution was viewed by minority Tamils, Muslims, Up Country Tamils Burghers and Europeans as a means that would bolster their relatively weak political positioning in the constitutional reform processes. The next transitional stage resulted in the Soulbury Constitution, which, when drafted, included a minority rights protection clause. Ceylon became a dominion, and the clause would not prevent ensuing legislation against minority interests being passed by the independent Ceylonese parliament. The 1972 Constitution made a total break with the British Crown, Section 1 declaring a free, sovereign and independent republic. With it came Section 2 and the declaration of the unitary state, meaning that from inception there would be problems with introducing any idea of semi-federal reform. (The phrase Up Country Tamils has been used for some time to refer to those Tamil workers brought in by, or descended from, those brought in from India by the British to work on plantations in the hill country. See 'Upcountry Tamils are Sri Lankans', Ceylon Today, 3 March 2016, www.ceylontoday.lk/89-121069-news-detail-upcountry-tamils-are-sri-lankans.html.)
3 | Mahinda Rajapaksa v. Kudahetti 1002 SLR 223. The case was dismissed after lengthy consideration. Transcript available at www1.umn.edu/humanrts/research/srilanka/caselaw/Arrest/Mahinda_Rajapakshe_v_Kudahetti_&_Others.htm. For comment on the contrast between freedom of expression and NGO roles that contrasts the 1990s with the Rajapaksa period, see also L. Dias, 'Relevance of freedom of association in 1992 and today: Ratawawi Peramuna and its players', Groundviews, 27 July 2014, <http://groundviews.org/2014/07/27/relevance-of-freedom-of-association-in-1992-and-today-ratawawi-peramuna-and-its-players/> (accessed 19 June 2015).
4 | Note: it is said that the young Mahinda Rajapaksa once walked from Colombo to Kataragama calling for the abolition of the executive presidency.
5 | The term 'republic' most generally means a system of government that derives its power from the people rather than from other foundations such as heredity or divine right. 'It is impossible to establish a perpetual republic,' wrote Niccolò Machiavelli in The Discourses (1517), 'because in a thousand unforeseen ways its ruin may be accomplished.' Machiavelli explains at the start of the third book of The Discourses that all worldly things have a limit to their life, and that 'in the process of time [a state's] goodness is corrupted, [and] unless something intervenes to lead it back to the mark, it of necessity kills that body'. See Z. J. Witlich, 'Necessity as virtue in the thought of Machiavelli', <http://as.tufts.edu/politicalscience/sites/all/themes/asbase/assets/documents/research/necessity.pdf>. This occurs because, after ten years at most, men begin to corrupt, 'to behave with greater danger and more tumult, to transgress the laws, and to do so in a manner that makes it unsafe to punish them'. The return to the beginnings of a republic comes either by extrinsic accident or internal prudence, and the preferred Machiavellian option ought to be clear: 'either good orders or good men must produce the effect' (Discourses III.1.1–6, pp. 209–12).
6 | See also Uyangoda (2011b) 'Travails of state reform in the context of protracted civil war in Sri Lanka'. Both Uyangoda and Yiftachel are cited in Welikala (2015c) 'Constitutional from and reform in postwar Sri Lanka'.
7 | This quote is taken from the final draft paper, 'Constitutional form and reform in postwar Sri Lanka' (Welikala 2015c).
8 | Daily Mirror, 8 October 1971, cited in Edrisinha and Selvakkumaran (1990) 'Constitutional change in Sri Lanka since independence', pp. 79, 95. Quoted by Jayampathy Wickramaratne, 'The executive presidency: a left perspective', in Welikala (2015d).
9 | Gunasekara's article quotes an astrological prediction from the state-owned publication Silumina of 7 May: 'President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Rajapaksas will rule this country for a long time... The Rajapaksas will become beloved leaders of this country... The next chapter in Sri Lanka is reserved for the Rajapaksas...'. See T. Gunasekara, 'Rajapaksa governance', Sunday Leader, 24 May 2010, www.thesundayleader.lk/2010/05/23/rajapaksa-governance/ (accessed 6 March 2014).
| See also 'The 18th amendment to the constitution: process and substance', Groundviews, 2 September 2010, <http://groundviews.org/2010/09/02/the-18th-amendment-to-the-constitution-process-and-substance/>.
| The new Jana Sabha system of government looks set to gut the powers of local-level state structures in Sri Lanka, strengthening the hands of the Colombo regime.
| 'The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) is concerned about the tabling of the "Divineguma Bill" in Parliament which if enacted will have serious implications for democracy, devolution and good governance in Sri Lanka. CPA and its Executive Director filed a Petition today in the Supreme Court (SC SD 3/2012) challenging the constitutionality of the Bill': 'Divineguma Bill challenged in Supreme Court', Colombo Telegraph, 17 August 2012, www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/divineguma-bill-challenged-in-supreme-court/. Others who challenged the bill included an employee of the Samurdhi Authority, the JVP. See 'JVP, CPA see monstrosity in Divineguma bill', The Sunday Times, 26 August 2012, www.sundaytimes.lk/120826/news/jvp-cpa-see-monstrosity-in-divineguma-bill-10110.html (accessed September 2012).
| The Karuna faction's formal name is Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP), which means 'Liberation Tigers of the Tamil People' in Tamil. This name was an attempt to sap legitimacy from the LTTE by taking the 'Liberation Tigers' part of its name. In less than one year after Karuna's return to Sri Lanka, the TMVP had become the most powerful paramilitary organisation in the country. It began in 2004 when Karuna broke away from the LTTE, taking about 4,000 Tiger cadres with him. After the LTTE struck back, inflicting serious losses, then President Chandrika Kumaratunga helped Karuna escape to the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where he remained until July 2006. He remained active in managing his cadres even while living abroad. Since returning to Sri Lanka, Karuna has used strong-arm tactics to establish a powerful paramilitary group that operates under government protection. See WikiLeaks release of 18 May 2007, communication from Robert O. Blake (then US Ambassador), <https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07COLOMBO728_a.html> (accessed 5 June 2015).
| See ICG (2012b) 'Sri Lanka's North II: rebuilding under the military', pp. ii–iii. To quote the executive summary of this report: 'The government points to the many new roads, rapid economic growth and numerous new infrastructure projects as signs of a post-war "northern spring". For most of the more than 430,000 people who have returned to their lands and villages over the past two years, however, there has been little benefit.'
| With specific reference to conflict-affected North Mannar, Mullaitivu, and Kilinochchi districts.
| For an accessible window on caste dynamics in Sri Lanka, see P. Perera, 'Caste and exclusion in Sinhala Buddhism', Colombo Telegraph, 7 March 2013, www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/caste-and-exclusion-in-sinhala-buddhism/.
The caste talk is getting embarrassing. Caste is never spoken about in the open in Sri Lanka but is always present. There is no caste census or reservation. It is never mentioned in newspapers except in the marriage classifieds. But it most certainly determines who we marry, who we vote for and in which Buddhist temple we worship. In this essay I would like to highlight an alternate glimpse of hierarchy, caste and exclusion in Sri Lankan Buddhism...
At the apex, one has the Govigama or agriculturalist land owning castes who account for roughly 50% of the Sinhalese population. All Sri Lankan Presidents and Prime Ministers with the exception of Ranasinghe Premadasa, belonged to this caste. Many had Anglican Christian antecedents like Bandaranaike, the founder of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party...
Just below are the Karava or fishermen caste who dominate the maritime districts. The Karava account for roughly 10% of the Sinhala population. The Karava challenged Govigama power in the two Sinhala youth revolts of 1971 and 1987 led by the Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP)... The JVP appealed to the dispossessed and poor. While it did not articulate its ideology in terms of caste, its caste base was exclusively non Govigama.
The article observes that General Fonseka was also non-Govigama, and that the Karava trend for conversion was to Roman Catholicism.
| For additional discussion of the problems of the electoral commission, see Transparency International (2010) The Governance Report 2010, Chapter 4. For a detailed breakdown of the electoral districts and system, see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_districts_of_Sri_Lanka#Jaffna_seats_controversy>.
| See Part 1, section 1.1 at www.preventionweb.net/files/28587_local governmentpolicy.pdf.
| Sri Lanka has a model to offer the world, but not the 'anti-terrorism' model President Mahinda Rajapaksa's administration is assiduously peddling. Rather, this is a model of political marketing, an 'all you need to know' crash course in building innocuous façades to hide insalubrious realities. The old saying suggests that all the people cannot be fooled all the time, but, as the Rajapaksas have proved, fooling all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time can more than suffice (Gunasekara 2011).
| Email from Faaiz Ameer, 4 August 2013.
| S. Kadri, 'At the CHOGM', London Review of Books 35(22), 21 November 2013, www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n22/sadakat-kadri/at-the-chogm (accessed 20 August 2015).
| The following January (2015), on the electoral defeat of Rajapaksa, it would be observed that if there were a central plank to the common opposition platform in the presidential election, it was about what to do with the executive presidential system in general and the eighteenth amendment in particular, in view of the crisis of democratic governance created by the insidious authoritarianism and pervasive corruption of the Rajapaksa regime. See A. Welikala, 'The executive presidency and the Sri Lankan state: myths and realities', Groundviews, 20 January 2015, <http://groundviews.org/2015/01/20/the-executive-presidency-and-the-sri-lankan-state-myths-and-realities/>. See also E. Buchanan, 'Sri Lanka's new government to investigate Mahinda Rajapaksa corruption allegations', International Business Times, 16 January 2015, www.ibtimes.co.uk/sri-lankas-new-government-investigate-mahinda-rajapaksa-corruption-allegations-1483812 (both accessed 20 January 2015).
Chapter 3
1 | India had, of course, interfered, with its own ill-fated peacekeeping attempt following the 1987 Accord; Sri Lanka was clearly perceived as a self-evident part of the Indian sphere of influence, culturally and geo-politically. China, while steering clear of political public statements, began an educational 'bridge' through its Confucian institutes and educational exchanges and cooperation as early as 1979; this was not unlike the approach of the British Council. See Rajapaksje (2016) 'Building goodwill through soft power' and 'Confucius Institute at the University of Kelaniya' at <http://english.hanban.org/confuciousinstitutes/node_10738.htm>.
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2 | Attempts at mediating a ceasefire have been mentioned above. There were also controversial overtures concerning the mass evacuation of civilians from the conflict zone. Credible reports from Colombo in March 2009 indicated that the US Pacific Command (PACOM) was planning to lead an evacuation of nearly 200,000 Tamil civilians trapped in the war-torn northern region of Sri Lanka. External Tamil activists urged that such plans be stopped as they 'would only serve to exacerbate the crisis for these civilians and support ethnic cleansing in this region. Instead of an evacuation, the "safe zones" these civilians are currently in should be strengthened, with full access for aid workers, journalists and human rights monitors.' See 'U.S. Tamil group urges Pacific Command not to abet Colombo's war on Tamils', TamilNet, 3 March 2009, www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=28575. Note: US Marines had delivered aid in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, an action that was highly controversial and sensitive in the region.
3 | High Commissioner Pillay suffered vitriolic abuse in the national press in Sri Lanka and elsewhere, being accused of bias in that her background was Indian Tamil while her nationality was South African. She spoke of this in an interview given after she finally gained access to Sri Lanka for an official mission in 2013, saying that she was highly offended by comments in the Sri Lankan media accusing her of bias because of her ethnicity. 'Some media, ministers, bloggers and various propagandists in Sri Lanka have, for several years now, on the basis of my Indian Tamil heritage, described me as a tool of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). They have claimed I was in their pay, the "Tamil Tigress in the UN". This is not only wildly incorrect, it is deeply offensive,' said Pillay. In the same vein, she added: 'The LTTE was a murderous organisation that committed numerous crimes and destroyed many lives... those in the diaspora who continue to revere the memory of the LTTE must recognise that there should be no place for the glorification of such a ruthless organisation.' Journalist Kalinga Seneviratne noted that these comments had not stopped the Sri Lankan media and the blogosphere continuing their attacks on the perceived bias of both the UNHRC and its head for allegedly overstepping their mandate to attack the Sri Lankan government from its own soil. See C. Haviland, 'Sri Lankan foreign minister denounces UN Rights Chief', BBC News, 1 June 2010, www.bbc.co.uk/news/10204507 (accessed 10 February 2012).
4 | The Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh raised the question of a political settlement granting Sri Lanka's Tamils more autonomy. 'India is caught in a strategic quandary regarding Sri Lanka,' said Iskander Rehman at Delhi's Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis. 'Its sizeable Tamil population means that it feels a natural sense of solidarity with the Tamil civilian population but it knows that if it criticises the government too harshly it may risk losing even more strategic space to the Chinese.' See 'India's deals with Sri Lanka heighten stakes in "Great Game" with Beijing', The Guardian, 9 June 2010, www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jun/09/sri-lanka-india-china-great-game (accessed 27 March 2015).
5
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In her cable to Washington, Butenis seeks to explain why there is so little momentum towards the formation of a 'truth and reconciliation' commission, or any other form of accountability. Most Tamil Tiger commanders, also under suspicion for war crimes such as the use of civilians as human shields, had been killed at the end of the war. President Rajapaksa had meanwhile fought an election campaign promising to resist any international efforts to prosecute 'war heroes' in the nation's army. Not only was the Colombo government not interested in investigating itself, but Tamils in Sri Lanka unlike those abroad were also nervous about the issue as it might make them targets for reprisals. (Borger 2015)
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Butenis wrote: 'While they wanted to keep the issue alive for possible future action, Tamil leaders with whom we spoke in Colombo, Jaffna and elsewhere said now was not time and that pushing hard on the issue would make them "vulnerable".' See 'Sri Lanka war-crimes accountability: the Tamil perspective', 15 January 2010, <https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10COLOMBO32_a.html> (accessed 12 September 2016).
6 | See www.channel4.com/news/sri-lanka-execution-video-evidence-of-war-crimes.
7 | In the words of one civil servant in Colombo on hearing this news: 'Small states need big hitters in the international game. Israel has the US, Zimbabwe has South Africa. We need our ancient neighbour to go to bat for us, not against us.' Conversation with author, Colombo, December 2010.
8 | Photograph of sign taken by author, September 2012.
9 | 'The wise give up the idea of victory and defeat', public statement by the Friday Forum, 11 April 2012, received by email.
| Prageeth Ekneligoda was a journalist and cartoonist who commented on democracy, human rights, and the need for free expression. He was also a father and a husband, and his wife Sandya lodged complaints with the police and National Human Rights Commission, later filing a habeas corpus case in the Court of Appeal. She campaigned tirelessly for an investigation and the return of her husband, writing personally to the President and his wife, standing outside parliament and reaching out to other families of disappeared people. Eventually she also appealed to the UN, which led to her being invited to give testimony in Geneva.
| Personal observations of international human rights experts present and Sri Lankan observers.
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Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Rupert Colville quoting Miss Pillay said that during this Human Rights Council session, there has been an unprecedented and totally unacceptable level of threats, harassment and intimidation directed at Sri Lankan activists who had travelled to Geneva to engage in the debate, including by members of the 71-member official Sri Lankan government delegation. ('Navi Pillay warns Sri Lanka', Daily Mirror, 23 March 2012, www.dailymirror.lk/17609/tech)
| See the discussion on this phrase as part of a 'long tradition of political obfuscation' at www.globalpolicy.org/qhumanitarianq-intervention.html (accessed 20 July 2015).
| Author interview with G. L. Peiris, then Minister of Export Development and International Trade, 3 February 2009, Colombo. (He was appointed Minister for External Affairs in 2010.)
| '"Lies Agreed Upon" to be screened at UN', Sunday Observer, 4 September 2011, www.sundayobserver.lk/2011/09/04/new14.asp (accessed 3 June 2015).
| See, for example, 'Sri Lanka probe "clears military"', BBC News, 14 July 2009, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8149728.stm> (accessed 3 March 2015). Sri Lanka's national human rights panel cleared the army of the 2006 killing of seventeen people working for the French charity Action Against Hunger. The head of the inquiry commission said he had been unable to find out who was to blame 'because he ran out of funds'. The bodies of the Action Against Hunger workers were found in the north-eastern town of Muttur. Truce monitors blamed security forces, who denied the charge. Heavy fighting had been going on in the area between troops and Tamil rebels fighting for an independent state. Fifteen of the bodies were found lying down and shot at close range on 7 August 2006, in a case that caused an international outcry. Two other bodies were found later. The aid staff – all but one ethnic Tamils – were working on tsunami relief projects in the area.
| See 'Local intelligence breaks LTTE's Malaysia network', Ceylon Today, 1 June 2014, www.mea.gov.lk/index.php/en/news-from-other-media/4714-local-intelligence-breaks-lttes-malaysia-network- (accessed 2 April 2015). Note: Yasmin Sooka's respected work An Unfinished War: Torture and sexual violence in Sri Lanka 2009–2014. A documentation of post-war atrocities documented surveillance operations and the monitoring of both Tamils in the island and members of the Tamil diaspora in their country of residence, those involved in protests or activism and those Tamils merely visiting Sri Lanka. Data was collected for a database maintained by the authorities, making Tamils vulnerable to the above crimes being committed against them if they returned to Sri Lanka. It also stated that research on human face detection is reportedly under way within the Department of Statistics and Computer Science at the University of Colombo. 'From a witness protection point of view, there are reasonable grounds to believe that Sri Lanka intelligence is using highly sophisticated facial recognition software to identify protesters from abroad if they return home.' See www.barhumanrights.org.uk/unfinished-war-torture-and-sexual-violence-sri-lanka-2009-2014 (accessed 25 March 2016).
| The speaker was chairman of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Committee for Strategic Action, Dr Subramanian Swamy, at an international seminar in Colombo in August 2014. See 'Dealing with devolution', The Hindu, 23 September 2014, www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/dealing-with-devolution-in-sri-lanka/article6435956.ece (accessed 4 April 2016).
| See 'Civil lawsuit filed against Major General Shavendra Silva', BBC Sinhala, 24 September 2011, www.bbc.com/sinhala/news/story/2011/09/110924_lawsuit.shtml (accessed 28 March 2016).
| See 'Sri Lanka president receives US court summons', BBC News, 19 June 2011, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13826803 (accessed 28 March 2016).
| See 'Spy cables reveal Sri Lanka hyped up Tamil Tiger postwar threat', Aljazeera America, 4 March 2015, http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/ 2015/3/4/spy-cables-reveal-sri-lanka-knew-truth-about-ltte-threat.html (accessed 4 April 2016).
| See 'OHCHR investigation on Sri Lanka', www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/OISL.aspx (accessed 2 May 2015).
| See 'Being punished for ending terrorism: Rajapaksa on UN Resolution', Amarasara News, 23 March 2014, www.amarasara.info/wordpress1/?m=201403&paged=6.
| See 'Names of the first lot of Sri Lankan war criminals & genocidaires released by Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam', 18 May 2014, www.einpresswire.com/article/205438728/names-of-the-first-lot-of-sri-lankan-war-criminals-genocidaires-released-by-transnational-government-of-tamil-eelam (accessed 5 August 2014). Names included previous and current presidents, officials and former military persons.
Chapter 4
1 | The extract comes from the poem '1958... '71... '77... '81... '83', available in Gunatilleke (2015) Confronting the Complexity of Loss, p. 35. For a profile of the poet, see 'Literary legacies: Jean Arasanayagam', Sunday Observer, 20 April 2008, www.sundayobserver.lk/2008/04/20/imp17.asp.
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2 | For the response of Transparency International Sri Lanka to the parliamentary report concerning adverse references, see www.tisrilanka.org/?p=376 (accessed 5 January 2015).
3 | It was support of lobbying for 'responsibility to protect' (R2P) in Sri Lanka that cost International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) Head Rama Mani her Sri Lankan visa for 'security reasons', leading to her being forced to leave the country. See 'Govt. cancels Dr. Rama Mani's visa', The Sunday Times, 3 February 2008, www.sundaytimes.lk/080203/News/news0024.html. See also R. Abeywardena, 'Berghof chief asked to leave', The Sunday Times, 30 December 2007, www.sundaytimes.lk/071230/News/news0001.html.
4 | Bob Rae, Canadian politician and former Head of the Forum of Federations (who had been an adviser on federal models during the peace negotiations), arrived with a full visa in June 2009 and was denied entry to Sri Lanka and sent back the following day. Rohan Edrisinha wrote in the Journal of Not-for-Profit Law in May 2010:
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One of the striking features of the report of the select committee was that it seemed to lack appreciation of the scope of freedom of association and speech and expression in a democratic society. The committee was critical of NGOs that advocated federalism on the basis that the President had been elected in November 2005 on a platform that promised to preserve the unitary character of the Constitution, and that the NGOs were acting in a manner "contradictory to the mandate given by the people of the country." Furthermore, many NGOs working in conflict affected areas were censured for engaging in activities prejudicial to national security. (Edrisinha 2010)
5 | Apart from the political ramifications explored by Mampilly, subsequent evaluations of immense aid flows during the post-tsunami period 'highlight the negative effects that too much money managed in a poorly coordinated manner can have, creating poor targeting, uneven standards of assistance and corruption. For example some post-tsunami assistance provides substantially higher housing support than the programmes offered by the ADB, EU and World Bank, and this has created increased tension' (Chapman et al. 2009: 32). Note: There was concern that the LTTE responded to tsunami aid flows by shifting its governance strategy away from a degree of cooperation with the government to a strategy dependent on aid flows from abroad. This shift affected conflict dynamics by furthering unilateral claims and inspiring anger in Colombo, thus bringing about an altered dynamic that further veered away from negotiated settlement towards a more violent outcome.
6 | There was a sense that the LTTE had used tsunami aid to political ends, which led to anger in government circles. Also, perceptions that much tsunami assistance was wasted resulted in acute disappointment and further damaged the reputation of relief and development agencies in the eyes of local stakeholders.
7 | Perera quotes Dr V. Suresh on the problem of funding, which has 'monetised human rights action' in both India and Sri Lanka. Perera's concern is the absence of a pluralistic, secular, open mindset in the deep South, and the failure to understand Tamil and human rights activism, which maintains the status quo of division.
8 | See the IIGEP's public statement of 6 March 2008 at www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/related_material/IIGEP%20public%20statement.pdf (accessed 2 July 2016).
9 | For more on 'Do No Harm', spearheaded by Mary Anderson, see www.conflictsensitivity.org/do-no-harm-local-capacities-for-peace-project/; <http://cdacollaborative.org/publication/do-no-harm-how-aid-can-support-peace-or-war/>.
| For a subsequent critique of neoliberal 'empire in denial' and of extreme professional norms and excesses, see Chandler (2006) and Easterly (2014). Burke and Mulakala (2011) observe that Sri Lanka has never been strongly aid-dependent. But top-down development approaches popular in the 1970s favoured support to a strong central government and overrode localised opinions or feelings, as is often cited with regard to the Mahaweli Basin development scheme, which caused upheaval and resentment among affected minorities. This shifted in the late 1980s, with a new emphasis on governance reform and liberalised economic policies.
| 'The institutional framework in place for the promotion and protection of human rights has fundamental capacity problems' (UNDP 2012: 14). See also Keenan (2007) 'The trouble with evenhandedness' and Korf (2006) 'Dining with devils?'
| Following the 2002 ceasefire, most projects immediately adopted a post-conflict approach, where the assumption was that the war-affected areas would begin to need recovery and that a peace dividend would underpin the transition from a ceasefire to a peace agreement. The largest projects sprang from the joint needs assessment in 2003, and the multilateral strategy that emerged in 2004 sought to coordinate the transition process from conflict to peace through five thematic areas (Chapman et al. 2009: 22).
| Walton is helpful in qualifying the term 'civil society'. He states that international actors supporting peace in Sri Lanka tended to utilise a normative view of civil society as a realm capable of building trust and cooperation, promoting and protecting rights and democracy and restraining an unruly state. This focus on the democratising potential of civil society has obscured a more influential set of organisations capable of mobilising without reference to liberal democratic goals. He chooses to use a broader meaning: an arena of uncoerced collective action around shared interests, purposes and values, citing the LSE Centre for Civil Society's 'What is Civil Society' (see www.lse.ac.uk/collections/CCS/what_is_civil_society.htm).
| Quoting Niland (2014a), the government's subsequent Consultative Committee on Humanitarian Assistance (CCHA) established in 2006:
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was widely seen as an Orwellian structure that served as an instrument of Colombo's propaganda in a sophisticated campaign to intimidate and emasculate the relief community. Colombo used visa and travel permits, the threat of expulsion from the country, character assassination and allegations of pro-Tiger sympathies to coerce and control the relief system... Threats to staff safety, particularly national staff, were a valid concern. In August 2006, 17 Action Contre la Faim (ACF) local staff were murdered in an execution style killing in their agency compound shortly after the SLA retook Muttur in the Eastern Province. The aid community protested the killing of their colleagues, but did not seize the potential watershed moment to renegotiate the space and parameters of humanitarian action.
| This article was originally read as dated 30 December 2010 at www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20081004_03, but by mid-2016 this URL was no longer available. However, an earlier version with the same title dated 3 October 2008 could be accessed via the Asian Tribune on 20 September 2016 at www.asiantribune.com/node/13504.
| See also www.rethinkfragility.com and the opening 'Prologue' for the Sri Lankan experience and the impact this had on the author.
| Kenneth Bush (1961–2016) was a prominent practitioner and scholar specialising in post-war recovery whose work pioneered the research and evaluation method and analysis in relation to conflict dynamics, ethics and power relations. He worked with a broad spectrum of policy, development and humanitarian organisations, and also held positions such as Research Director of the International Conflict Research Institute at the University of Ulster (Northern Ireland), founding professor of the Conflict Studies Programme of St Paul University (Ottawa, Canada), Executive Director at the Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit of the University of York (UK) and latterly Senior Lecturer in the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University's Global Security Institute.
| Interview with David Whaley, 19 August 2015.
| In compromise it was agreed that the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission would take on the monitoring role. In the wake of subsequent GoSL military tactics this had little effect.
| In fact, there were multiple national military missions to provide an immediate response to the tsunami emergency, with Austria, Belgium, Canada, Greece, India, Italy and Pakistan also deploying troops to deal with the devastation caused by the natural disaster and for the delivery of relief supplies.
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PACOM launching an evacuation of Tamil civilians supports the Sri Lankan government's campaign of ethnic cleansing of this region. Tamils have been under attack by the Sri Lankan government since last September; evacuating them from Vanni and delivering them to the Sri Lankan government is equivalent to being an accomplice to genocide. As American citizens, we implore you to put an immediate stop to PACOM plans to evacuate these civilians. We do not want their blood on our hands. Instead of an evacuation, we urge the U.S. government to expand the 'safe zone' these civilians are in, and strengthen their security by allowing aid workers, journalists and human rights monitors full access to the region. We also ask the U.S. government to pressure the Sri Lankan government to accept a ceasefire to provide respite to these besieged civilians. (TamilNet 2009)
| A full exposition of the Norwegian story regarding their experience as a third party was published in 2015. To End a Civil War: Norway's peace engagement with Sri Lanka was written by Mark Salter in close cooperation with Eric Solheim and Vidar Helgeson. For details and a film record of their book launch in London, see www.soas.ac.uk/south-asia-institute/events/28oct2015-to-end-a-civil-war-norways-peace-engagement-with-sri-lanka.html (accessed 9 January 2016).
| Rights Up Front serves as a plan of action to meet such goals. Outlined within the document are six specific points that can make a 'qualitative difference in the way the UN system meets its responsibilities':
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1. | Integrating human rights into the lifecycle of all staff, so that they all understand what the UN's mandates and commitments to human rights mean for their respective department, agency, fund or programme.
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2. | Adopting an 'Article 99 attitude' in order to tell member states what they need to hear. The UN will engage more proactively and strategically with member states, including through, as Deputy-Secretary-General Eliasson suggested, providing horizon-scanning briefings to the Security Council.
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3. | Ensuring coherent strategies of action on the ground and leveraging the UN system's capacities.
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4. | At headquarters, adopting a 'whole-of-UN' approach to engagement with member states and with teams on the ground, and to do so well before a crisis strikes to enable early action.
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5. | Achieving greater impact in the UN's human rights protection work.
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6. | Developing a more robust system for gathering and analysing information on serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law in order to support such activities.
| See www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/index.php/crises/crisis-in-sri-lanka and Niland (2014b) Inhumanity and Humanitarian Action. One very personal report that received wide informal circulation was Julian Vigo's 'Independent Report on Sri Lanka and United Nations Human Rights Violations', Sri Lanka Guardian, 11 April 2012, www.srilankaguardian.org/2012/ 04/independent-report-on-sri-lanka-and-un.html (accessed 2 January 2016).
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Sri Lanka and Iran have an historic economic partnership. Iran sells crude oil cheaply to Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka buys its arms and armaments from Iran. Iran funds many Sri Lankan energy development projects, from hydroelectric power to oil refineries. Iran's investments in Sri Lanka were tallied in 2008 at approximately US$450 million. Iran is also the largest lender and aid donor to Sri Lanka. It provided loans to Sri Lanka for the purchase of military equipment during the Sri Lankan Civil War and also trained Sri Lankan military personnel. Sri Lanka was the first Asian country which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited when he assumed office. (Walker (2011) 'Sri Lanka and Iran')
| Japan was the highest donor in the OECD list, with $388 million of its funding included in OECD budget lines. See statistics at www.oecd.org/dac/stats/LKA.gif.
| This observation refers to the bitter contestation between armed groups vying for the role of key leading representative of the Tamil cause. In targeted killings, the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) killed 280 Tamil Elam Liberation Organisation (TELO) cadres in 1986, and forced the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS) to the sidelines and others to the Eastern Province.
| Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, 'Accra Agenda for Action', 4 September 2008, www.undp.org/mdtf/docs/Accra-Agenda-for-Action.pdf. For both the Paris Declaration and the Accra Agenda for Action, see OECD (n.d.).
| The IFRC's code of conduct is available at www.ifrc.org/publicat/conduct/code. See also www.icrc.org/eng/assets/files/publications/icrc-002-1067.pdf (accessed 2 January 2016).
| For the 20 October 2009 presentation of the findings of the 'OECD DAC Evaluation of Donor Activities in Support of Conflict-Sensitive Development and Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding in Sri Lanka', see www.oecd.org/countries/srilanka/ (accessed 10 January 2016).
| A paper dedicated to the 'OECD at 50 and beyond' (available at www.oecd.org/about/) articulates the informing principles of the OECD:
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Today, we are focused on helping governments around the world to: Restore confidence in markets and the institutions that make them function; Re-establish healthy public finances as a basis for future sustainable economic growth; Foster and support new sources of growth through innovation, environmentally friendly 'green growth' strategies and the development of emerging economies; Ensure that people of all ages can develop the skills to work productively and satisfyingly in the jobs of tomorrow.
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The conflicted and uneven effects of economic liberalisation are well documented for Sri Lanka. Ameresekere (2011) amassed and analysed primary sources documenting how resources were plundered throughout the 1980s and early 2000s; formal policies 'at the behest of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, set the stage for widespread corruption and allowed an unprecedented illicit transfer of public wealth into privileged and private hands'. He examines the privatisation and outright sale of the facilities of the Port of Colombo, the national insurance company and prized tea plantations, ministries entering supply contracts with private banks, construction agreements with foreign firms, corruption and theft. His study also documents public interest litigation fighting economic crime, fraud and corruption.
| Dibbert (2014) reflected that the shrinking space for NGOs could be viewed as a microcosm of broader trends on the island, in which freedom of association and movement were increasingly curtailed.
| In India, a women's organisation working on gender and human rights in cooperation with Oxfam was visited in Chennai by government agents asking for registration information; the Ford Foundation in Delhi was put under pressure until it felt obliged to freeze its funding. See 'Ford Foundation freezes funding to India as Modi sarkar clamps down on NGOs', Firstpost, 14 July 2015, www.firstpost.com/blogs/life-blogs/ford-foundation-freezes-funding-india-modi-govt-clamps-ngos-2342146.html.
Chapter 5
1 | Cited in Doole (2016) 'Advent of "Sinha-le" movement reawakening the racial monster'.
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2 | Note: Post-war Sri Lanka has also seen the prolonged and heightened use of political Buddhism as a mobilising force to assert a type of control, in the name of protecting Sri Lankan Buddhists. Sinhala political Buddhism has been a feature of internal violence and civil war dynamics, warranting attention from analysts and observers for some years (see, for example, DeVotta (2007) 'Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist ideology').
3 | There was a bold narrative, a 'new genealogy for the Ruling Family. According to this... the Rajapaksas are direct descendants of Dutugemunu – the Hero-king of Sinhala-Buddhism – and the Family of King Suddhodana, the Buddha's father' (Gunasekara 2014b). Note: The invocation of so-called Buddhist sayings and quotations in political speeches and parliamentary debate warrants careful scrutiny: for example, cultural sayings are not to be confused with religious references. Women's groups in Sri Lanka expressed concern over the renewed currency given to 'familial ideology' and the assumed central role of the mother in every family unit, as expressed in both the Mahinda Chintana and earlier in the President's 2005 election manifesto, both implying that empowering women meant giving them the power to raise children for the good of society. Similarly, in strained parliamentary debates over domestic violence, the old proverb 'violence in the home is only until the rice is cooked' is invoked in opposition to modern 'Western influence' for clear legislation. See Kodikara (2012) Only Until the Rice is Cooked? Kodikara provides an old proverb from English culture too, perhaps to demonstrate that social values can change: 'A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree, the more you beat them the better they be' (ibid.: 20).
4 | See the full Commonwealth Charter at <http://thecommonwealth.org/our-charter> (accessed 2 March 2016).
5 | Address to the nation, 6 December 2006, available at www.priu.gov.lk/news_update/Current_Affairs/ca200612/20061207address_to_the_nation.htm. Also quoted in Human Rights Watch's 'Return to war' at www.hrw.org/reports/2007/srilanka0807/8.htm.
6 | Note: Sinhala culture and literature that evolved and developed within Sri Lanka were solidified by Buddhism. It became the source and secret of unity through history, which is why these key areas continue to be a target for annihilation by the Christian West and its local stooges. There are only 14.8 million Sinhalese-speaking Sinhala and thus both the ethnic group and its language must be protected. All other cultures and languages in Sri Lanka originated from other countries. It was the Sinhalese who built Sri Lanka's civilisation (Waduge 2013).
7 | Gray concludes: 'Currently, the Sinhalese-dominated centralised education system has created a non-plural concept of history that is isolating minority populations' (2012: 8).
8 | See also Walton and Hayward (2014) Contesting Buddhist Narratives.
9 | McGowan's comments came just after a mass exodus of some 90,000 Rohingya who had fled persecution by crossing into Bangladesh.
| In the words of Gravers:
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The chronicle tells the story of the Buddhist king Duṭṭhagāminī who – after a long war against the evil (Tamil) King Eāra – evicted the Tamils in the second century BC. Duṭṭhagāminī's story is used as if it was factual history. It describes Duṭṭhagāminī as a dhammarāja, a righteous king according to Buddhism, who fights demons and protects Buddhism through a holy war. The legend reads as an allegory of Māra's attack on the Buddha before his enlightenment. The evil tempter Māra and his army were wiped out when the Earth Goddess wrung her wet hair and the ensuing flood swept away the army of evil, i.e., the ultimate defence of the Buddha and dhamma (the doctrine). Deegalle (2003), a Sinhala monk, explained that Duṭṭhagāminī showed remorse after killing his enemy and gave Eāra the last honours. Duṭṭhagāminī was comforted by monks who said that it was no worse to kill 'evil unbelievers' than to kill animals. Thus, the Mahāvaṃsa can be interpreted as a dispensation of the non-violence principle which states that killing of all sentient beings produces demerit and contradicts metā ('loving kindness'). (Gravers (2015) 'Anti-Muslim Buddhist nationalism in Burma and Sri Lanka', p. 17)
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See also Deegalle (2003) 'Is violence justified in Theravāda Buddhism?'
| Stathern also refers to militant actions by Buddhists in other settings and times, for example among the Samurai in Japan, in anti-colonial struggle, and in contemporary Burma/Myanmar. He reminds us that in terms of doctrinal principles and precepts, it is possible to compare the difference between Christian teachings and the wars conducted by nations who would call themselves Christian.
| See also Deen (2014) 'UN chief urges Sri Lanka to protect Muslims under attack'.
| See the complete speech of 14 July 2014 featuring the Chief Justice at www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFcYFY8XpF0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFcYFY8XpF0 (accessed 14 July 2014).
| See reporting and separate posted news items at www.tamilguardian.com/article.asp?articleid=16418 (accessed 9 July 2015).
| Another example would be the case of women in Ashraf Nagar, Ampara district, who filed a fundamental rights case in the Supreme Court over land requisitioned by the military, seeking restoration or adequate compensation. Response from the military included blocking off water supplies to the petitioners, preventing relatives from visiting them, and the blasting of Buddhist prayers through a loudspeaker all day in front of the home of a Muslim petitioner (Women's Action Network 2013b).
| Dewasiri suggests that: 'It was as a reaction to the growing strength of the Traditional Tamil Homeland ideology that the Sinhala-Buddhists developed the notion of the "Sinhala-Buddhist Heritage of the North and the East"' (Dewasiri 2013: 2). He also explores the 'archaeologising of the North and East' with particular reference to pilgrimage-cum-tourism by Sinhala-Buddhists from the South.
| For example, see Rose-Greenland and Müge Göçek (2014) 'Cultural heritage and violence in the Middle East'.
| For additional background study, see During (2011) Cultural Heritage and Identity Politics.
| Problems also identified included the missing and high levels of sexual violence and harassment experienced among women survivors in the North and East.
| See also the section on p. 6 that deals with cultural rights (WAN and CHRD 2012).
| See also Hyndman and Amarasingam (2014) '"Touring terrorism"'.
| Commercial fishing in northern Sri Lanka was not an exclusively Tamil enterprise before the war:
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in some districts approximately 20 per cent of fishing licences were held by Sinhalese fishermen. There were also a number of fishermen from the Sri Lankan Muslim community. However, during the war, both Muslim and Sinhalese fishermen were expelled from the north by the LTTE. Since the defeat of the LTTE, a number of Sinhalese fishermen have returned to the north and northeast. (MRT and RRT (2013) 'Sri Lanka: treatment of opposition groups, citizens and persons with certain LTTE links', p. 22)
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The Migration Review Tribunal and Refugee Review Tribunal draw on ICG reports, including 'Sri Lanka's North II: rebuilding under the military' (ICG 2012b). The Australian Refugee Review Tribunal's (RRT's) 2012 paper was released amid concerns about a rising number of Sri Lankan 'boat people' seeking refuge in Australia. See 'More people boarding boats to Australia', IRIN, 12 July 2012, www.irinnews.org/report/95855/sri-lanka-more-people-boarding-boats-australia (accessed 27 February 2016). It needs to be said that the rumour network in both Jaffna and Colombo in 2012 claimed (informal) military complicity in selling boat passage to Australia to young unemployed Tamil males, but this is anecdotal in nature.
| Personal conversations with women gathering at Kumulumunai Puspampal village near Mullaitivu, February 2016.
| Ameen Izzadeen, deputy editor of The Sunday Times, stated in an editorial printed by Aljazeera that Britain had put Sri Lanka on notice:
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Either launch an independent domestic probe on alleged war crimes before March, or face an international inquiry. In March 2014, the UN Human Rights Council will hear a report from UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay on the progress Sri Lanka has made in addressing war crime charges. A bad report is likely to pave the way for the United States, Britain, Canada and other Western powers to move for an international inquiry.
| See also 'Sri Lanka's pluralist ethnic fabric under threat as anti-Muslim drive gains pace', UK Tamil News, 21 January 2016, www.uktamilnews.com/?p=19295 (accessed 12 March 2016).
Chapter 6
1 | Quote taken from Sen (2009) The Idea of Justice, p. x.
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2 | Citizens' movements for good governance were a major driving force in propelling the common candidate Maithripala Sirisena to electoral victory over Rajapaksa, under a banner of 'Yahapalanaya' (righteous government). For an influential and substantial work that provides documentation and evidence for such demands, see Visalingam (2011). For a wry overview of how patterns can repeat themselves when people are in power, see 'A year of yahapalanaya' (The Sunday Times 2015).
3 | The report was far-sighted in its recommendations, among them: 1) Sri Lanka would not be defined as unitary or federal; 2) every constituent people would have the right to internal self-determination; 3) a comprehensive bill of rights would be included in the constitution; 4) power would be devolved to the provinces with provincial government and legislatures; 5) four options were given for consideration on a merger of North and East; and 6) there would be parity of status for the Sinhala and Tamil languages. Crucially, the report also recommended devolved police and land powers to provincial level. In Jeyaraj's (2011) view, the report had accomplished valid work: 'This is a home-grown solution recommended by the multi-ethnic Panel of Experts appointed by the President.' But it had not been acted upon.
4 | For general information on the economy and the election that saw Rajapaksa's demise, see Rajapaksa (2014) 'A fault in his stars?'
5 | For some whose own employment was not threatened by this development, there was concern about the importing of Chinese convicts, whether on ethical or personal security grounds (Soysa 2010).
6 | Friday Forum press release, 20 May 2011, sent by email to author.
7 | Chaaminda draws on Escobar (1995) for her analysis.
8 | The Bishop of Mannar reported 146,679 missing persons in a submission, and was later investigated and interviewed by the CID (Colombo Telegraph 2010).
9 | Conversation with Yolanda Foster, London, 27 January 2016. See a full account in Becker (2013) Campaigning for Justice. Human rights group advocacy had seen success, notably through Human Rights Watch and the assistance of US Senator Patrick Leahy in the commissioning of a senate report on Sri Lanka produced by the State Department's Office of War Crimes.
| Alongside domestic considerations of the politics in Tamil Nadu, informal conversations in 2013 with Delhi insiders suggested that the impeachment of the Chief Justice in Sri Lanka was a bridge too far for many in the Indian government, and that similar 2008 actions in Pakistan may have contributed to the derailing of talks on Kashmir and Jammu. The Pakistan case is documented at www.ibanet.org/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleUid=D931C72B-D13C-4557-AE96-7337C9375666 (accessed 2 March 2016).
| Sri Lanka Brief reported the previous month that, for the American public, a lengthy pro-Sri Lanka advert was shown on national television, assuring transatlantic audiences that all was well on the island. A 28-minute video, 'Sri Lanka: Reconciling and Rebuilding', appeared as paid programming on the US network NBC from the Thompson Advisory Group, a Washington-based advocacy and strategy group hired by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka 'at a whopping cost of US$ 66,600 (Rs. 8,337,600) per month' (Bastians 2014). For more on this and on the diplomatic offensive launched by the government, see 'Pillorying Pillay', The Sunday Times, 8 September 2013, www.sundaytimes.lk/130908/editorial/pillorying-pillay-61387.html.
| Private document outlining the Sri Lanka situation analysis, received by email from D. Whaley on 9 March 2016.
| Wijewardene's article (2009) includes the following interesting extension in thought:
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That the Rajapaksas' diplomacy was able to thwart the machinations of the most powerful nations on earth is something that not just Sri Lankans but people across the developing world can be proud of. Few if any small third world nations have stood up to the West as successfully as the Rajapaksa regime did at the Human Rights Council. Of course many will argue that the atrocities and human rights violations committed in the last days of the war were sufficiently extreme that a UN sponsored investigation was justified. However for most Sri Lankans a UN sponsored investigation would have been an unwelcome and unacceptable intrusion in the nation's sovereignty.
| The NGO Forum was incorporated as the International Working Group on Sri Lanka in 1996.
| Jansz (2000), quoted in Punyasena (2003) 'The façade of accountability' and Jayawardene (2000) 'Torture amidst the New Year crackers', describing the letter from the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture to the Sri Lankan President dated 15 November 1999.
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There are a number of ways in which international human rights monitors could be associated with current or envisaged arrangements, beyond the SLMM. An official body, including the proposed parliamentary committee or the National Human Rights Commission, could invite such assistance, which could then be provided through an intergovernmental organization of which Sri Lanka is a member – the United Nations or the Commonwealth. In view of the reluctance of previous Sri Lankan governments to invite any expanded UN role, I asked about the acceptability of – for example – technical advice on human rights monitoring through the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and/or the use of UN Volunteers as human rights monitors. (UNVs have played such a role effectively elsewhere, and are already deployed in the work of UNICEF and UNHCR in Sri Lanka.) This was explicitly regarded as an acceptable possibility by the Prime Minister, who referred to the very different attitude of his government to the role of the UN, indicated by his request to the Secretary-General to send a UN needs assessment mission to Sri Lanka. (Martin (2003) 'Unarmed monitoring and human rights field presence')
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President Sirisena said that while the UN report released in September 2015 had pointed to army involvement in war crimes, the report had failed to mention names. He said it was important to determine whether such crimes actually took place. He said: 'If the Sri Lankan Army is alleged for such crimes, our concern should be to free them from those allegations. If anyone has committed a crime, there's no doubt that they should be punished. However it is wrong to make the entire army guilty for what happened.' The president also dismissed reports from the advocacy group Freedom from Torture that people in detention were still being tortured. (Ameen (2016) 'Sri Lanka President wants "internal" crimes court')
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For an alternative view on the need for international assistance on accountability in Sri Lanka, see Fonseka and Ganeshathasan (2016) Hybrid vs. Domestic.
| Private document outlining the Sri Lanka situation analysis, received by email from D. Whaley on 9 March 2016.
Chapter 7
1 | See 'Director General of UNESCO visits the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka 2–4 May 2006', http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=32868&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html (accessed 24 May 2016).
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2 | 'GL-Clinton deal on LLRC implementation revealed', The Sunday Leader, 24 June 2012, www.thesundayleader.lk/2012/06/24/gl-clinton-deal-on-llrc-implementation-revealed/ (accessed 4 May 2016).
3 | 'Sri Lanka slams UN rights body', AFP Reuters, 28 August 2013, www.thesundaily.my/news/808985 (accessed 16 May 2016). The response from HC Pillay was calm and clear; Sri Lanka had been one of the states assisting in formulating the framework of human rights under which she was mandated to do her work.
4 | 'Gotabhaya Rajapaksa criticises Navi Pillay visit', The Hindu, 3 September 2013, www.thehindu.com/news/international/south-asia/gotabhaya-rajapaksa- criticises-navi-pillay-visit/article5089460.ece?utm_source=InternalRef &utm_medium=relatedNews&utm_campaign=RelatedNews (accessed 27 May 2016).
5 | Well-founded speculation continues on whether money changed hands to prevent a Tamil turnout which in all probability would have supported his opponent, Ranil Wickremesinghe. For an account of WikiLeaks cables indicating a multimillion-dollar payoff to the Tigers, see U. Kurukulasuriya, 'Rajapaksa – Tiger deal on WikiLeaks and political analysis', Colombo Telegraph, 7 April 2012, www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/rajapaksa-tiger-deal-on-wikileaks-and-political-analysis/ (accessed 15 December 2014). See also D. B. S. Jeyaraj, 'LTTE-enforced boycott lost Ranil the presidency in 2005', Daily Mirror, 24 October 2014, www.dailymirror.lk/55085/ltte-enforced-boycott-lost-ranil-the-presidency-in-2005; N. Kannangara, 'Rajapaksa – LTTE deal in 2005 back in the limelight', The Sunday Leader, 6 December 2015, www.thesundayleader.lk/2015/12/06/rajapaksa-ltte-deal-in-2005-back-in-the-limelight/ (all accessed 26 May 2016).
6 | Speech of 19 November 2005. Available at www.priu.gov.lk/execpres/speeches/2005/20051119president_rajapaksa_at_swearing_ceremony.html (accessed 25 May 2016).
7 | The post-independence stance was radically altered when the 'pro-West' UNP government came to power in 1977, opening up the country to Bretton Woods-style economic liberalisation and the encroachment of new bilateral and multilateral donors as well as foreign investment. With these new connections and the exodus of thousands of Tamils in the wake of the 1983 pogrom, processes of militarisation and internationalisation accelerated (Raheem and Loganathan 2005: 9). The tension between the name 'Socialist Republic' and the actions of liberalising political elites has been a continual theme in Sri Lankan history and politics.
8 | Address by the Honourable Lakshman Kadirgamar, at the Fifty-Sixth Session of the United Nations General Assembly, New York, Tuesday 13 November 2001. Quoted in In Search of Peace: Selected speeches and interviews by the late Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar. Colombo: Department of Government Printing, pp. 187–9. See also A. Roberts (2012) Democracy, Sovereignty and Terror.
9 | See the graphic description of enemy, tactics and assault in Chandraprema (2012) Gota's War, which takes as its starting point the notion that foreigners had got it wrong and offers Gotabaya Rajapaksa's story to set the record straight: 'Without Mahinda there would have been no decision to wage war. Without Gotabhaya, no victory' (ibid.: 13).
| See their documents, particularly Special Report No. 20 (April 2006) on 'Terrorism, counterterrorism and the challenges to human rights advocacy', at www.uthr.org/specialreport.htm. See also Special Report No. 30 (2009), 'Let them speak', which includes the following observation on the dilemma of many Tamils in the North:
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Thus even during the peace process the active section of the LTTE concentrated on furthering their control over the Tamils, conscripting children, training suicide cadres and killing opponents. Many experienced cadres on the other hand left the organisation after going through the punishment, got married and started raising families. The same applied to officers who wanted to live as officers in peacetime, raising children, sending them for an English education and university, ensuring good career prospects.
| Part of the thrust of this argument was frustration over the forcible recruitment of child soldiers by the LTTE, which received little sanction by intermediaries after the ceasefire. See 'Sri Lanka: Tamil Tigers forcibly recruit child soldiers', Human Rights Watch, 11 November 2004, www.hrw.org/news/2004/11/11/sri-lanka-tamil-tigers-forcibly-recruit-child-soldiers (accessed 14 May 2016). UNICEF worked to urge the children's release and the end of the practice. See 'UNICEF urges Tamil Tigers to stop recruiting child soldiers in Sri Lanka', UN News Centre, 22 January 2004, www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=9533&Cr=child&Cr1=soldiers#.V022Br4YO4E (accessed 30 May 2016). There is also a Tamil view that LTTE elite leaders were somehow corrupted or spoiled by the so-called peace process, taken out of context and removed somewhat from their dedication to revolutionary zeal. This demoralised or tainted what had been a genuine, well-founded struggle.
| 'How Beijing won Sri Lanka's civil war', The Independent, 22 May 2010, www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/how-beijing-won-sri-lankas-civil-war-1980492.html (accessed 25 November 2015).
| For documentation on arms transfers to Sri Lanka leading up to the final offensive, see Wezeman et al. (2009) 'International arms transfers'. They note that between mid-2002 and mid-2007 Sri Lanka took delivery of some $140 million worth of military equipment from China. Israel, Ukraine and Pakistan were also substantial suppliers, with Pakistan receiving a 2008 supply deal worth $25 million.
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There is a need to recognise the fundamental role of the State in civilian protection. In the first instance, the role of governments in civilian protection should be respected as it is their primary responsibility to protect their own citizens. The UN and the humanitarian agencies must support and assist governments and in doing so be sensitive to ground realities, including respect for the sovereignty of States. ('President confident of coming through', The Nation, www.nation.lk/2011/05/15/politics.htm (accessed 3 May 2016))
| Ivor Jenkins, a former South African minister, was made a consultant to the government. The Swiss also supported South African initiatives to promote conciliatory meetings and consideration of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for Sri Lanka. Privately, some Sri Lankans held the view that you could not replicate the South African TRC model in Sri Lanka, not least because 'Sri Lanka is a shame culture and not a guilt culture'.
| N. Fernando, 'The battle for the kingdom he lost', Colombo Telegraph, 23 April 2015, www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/the-battle-for-the-kingdom-he-lost/. A sample from this article:
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We want a better system of governance, peace and reconciliation to be established, to put an end to abuse of power and corruption. The rape of mother Lanka including her daughters have gone unpunished. These criminals have to be brought before the courts of the people. Justice and accountability for all have to be established. The future of our country rests upon building a new vision and activism based on a new leadership able to end the 'rogue regime' culture that still lives within the cracks and corners of the Sri Lankan State. We cannot afford the dark ages of Sri Lankan politics to return back and remain silently for the return of the Vampires.
| The official statement was issued by the UN Security Council on 13 May 2009 as SC/9659, 'Security Council press statement on Sri Lanka'.
| 'Mauritius PM to boycott Sri Lanka Commonwealth meet', The Times of India, 13 November 2013, <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/Mauritius-PM-to-boycott-Sri-Lanka-Commonwealth-meet/articleshow/25669609.cms> (accessed 4 June 2016).
| See United Nations Treaty Collection data at https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-4&chapter=4&clang=_en.
| 'GSP plus: Lanka has a long way to go, 27 conventions', Sri Lanka Brief, 14 May 2016, <http://srilankabrief.org/2016/05/gsp-plus-lanka-has-a-long-way-to-go-27-conventions> (accessed 5 June 2016).
| The ambitious project was completed successfully in 2015. See 'New China–Myanmar oil pipeline bypasses Malacca trap', The Hindu, 30 January 2015, www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/new-chinamyanmar-oil-pipeline-bypasses-malacca-trap/article6839352.ece; 'With oil and gas pipelines, China takes a shortcut through Myanmar', Forbes Asia, 9 February 2015, www.forbes.com/sites/ericrmeyer/2015/02/09/oil-and-gas-china-takes-a-shortcut/#78c4ac4d2d40 (accessed 20 May 2016).
| 'China urges international community not to complicate Sri Lanka issue' Xinhua, 30 April 2011, <http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-04/30/c_13853179.htm> (accessed 2 May 2016). According to one estimate, Chinese government lending increased in the decade from 2002 fifty-fold to $490 million in 2012, compared with $211 million from Western countries and lending agencies. See A. Ondaatjie, 'Growing China ties let Sri Lanka rebuff U.S. war inquiry push', Bloomberg, 6 March 2014, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-03-06/growing-china-ties-let-sri-lanka-rebuff-u-s-war-inquiry-push (accessed 2 March 2015).
| It is noteworthy that in May 2016 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a statement on the seventh anniversary of the end of the war in Sri Lanka, which included the following comment:
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Tamil-Canadians are an integral part of our country and have overcome much adversity. I extend my deepest sympathy and support to Canadians of Tamil descent.
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I am encouraged that the Sri Lankan government is committed to working with the United Nations Human Rights Council and the international community towards seeking accountability in their country. A robust accountability mechanism must enlist the confidence of the victims of this war, through the meaningful engagement of foreign and Commonwealth investigators, prosecutors, and judges. Canada will continue to engage the international community in investigating and addressing serious violations of international law in Sri Lanka and around the world. We stand willing to assist the government of Sri Lanka in fulfilling this commitment. (<http://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2016/05/18/statement-prime-minister-canada-seventh-anniversary-end-war-sri-lanka>)
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The Trudeau statement is a reminder of how important Tamil diaspora lobbying has been in highlighting human rights abuses at the UNHRC. Diaspora activism as a political force was instrumental in the eventual enactment of (ongoing) reform in Myanmar, and India turned a blind eye to both Burmese dissidents and Nepali opposition groups (during Nepal's civil war) in Delhi so long as they operated lawfully and under the radar. China has long objected to the visibility of the Tibetan diaspora in India under the leadership of the Dalai Lama. There is a Uyghur American Association that has lobbied the US government on human rights concerns in China, and a Kashmiri group in the UK that lobbies on behalf of Kashmir for changes in the policy of India. Diasporas form networks of influence, regardless of whether they come from small states or big powers.
| De Alwis mentions a joke circulating in Colombo which recalls that several centuries ago the King of Kotte elicited the help of the Dutch to get rid of the Portuguese and ended up having the Dutch occupying parts of his kingdom. The new King of Kotte – i.e. President Mahinda Rajapaksa – elicited the help of the Indians and the Chinese to get rid of the LTTE and now these two countries have annexed the entire island: the Chinese have taken the South and the northern half has gone to the Indians. While there is no clear or finite division of northern and southern spheres, or 'spoils', the story highlights Sri Lanka's vulnerable positioning vis-à-vis global and regional power.
| Moody's, 'The Asia-Pacific debt heat map', which was shared for research by a registered user via email. Registered users may access this at www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-Credit-impact-from-environmental-issues-varies-widely-across-sectors--PR_339980.
| At time of writing, Sri Lanka was also undergoing or emerging from turmoil in the Central Bank and a major bond-selling scandal. Shepard references Ekanayake (2016) for his work on macro-economic analysis and growing crisis:
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The overall size of the Sri Lankan economy is about US$75 billion in terms of GDP estimation while the volume of public debt has reached $81.2 billion or almost 100 per cent of GDP at the end of 2015. Out of the total debt, foreign debt burden is around $49.2 billion or absorbing almost 34 per cent of export earnings for annual foreign debt repayment while total debt repayment is equalled to the government annual revenue in 2015. During the last regime, borrowing from foreign capital markets at exorbitant rates of interest and shorter repayment periods resulted in extra debt burden while utilising those funds lavishly for White-Elephant-Type projects.
| 'The land the white man took by means of military strength is now being obtained by foreigners paying ransom to a handful of persons... If this trend continues our country would become a colony and we would become slaves.' This quote is from Sirisena's election manifesto and is quoted in Pearson (2015) 'Why Sri Lanka's election matters for China'.
| Otherwise known as 'One Belt One Road' information. See www.xinhuanet.com/english/special/silkroad/ (accessed 2 May 2016). For a map and an analysis of the historical context of what has been called the greatest economic diplomacy since the Marshall Plan in Europe following World War Two, see C. Clover and L. Hornby, 'China's great game: road to a new empire', Financial Times, 12 October 2015, www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6e098274-587a-11e5-a28b-50226830d644.html#axzz4Au8MlY7d (accessed 7 June 2016).
| 'Ensure UNHRC proposals won't create new conflicts: China', Daily Mirror, 7 June 2016, www.dailymirror.lk/110577/Ensure-UNHRC-proposals-won-t-create-new-conflicts-China-#sthash.zpcZr0g9.Gvqb3Lma.dpuf (accessed 7 June 2016).
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Chinese Ambassador in Sri Lanka, Yi Xianliang yesterday had advised Lankan leaders to see that the reconciliation mechanisms suggested by the UNHRC do not create new conflicts, the Indian News Express said...
'It would be ill advised to put reconciliation before development because it is only all round equitable development which will prevent social, political and economic conflicts,' he said...
The envoy said that mutual antagonism in South Asia will be mitigated if China, India and Pakistan form an economic alliance and co-opt Lanka and other South Asian nations. Lanka and India should sign the Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement (ETCA).
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The government's strategy to win the war (and indeed its strategy from mid-2008) was to coral the LTTE and the Tamil population of the north into an ever smaller area. As the LTTE's remaining territory around Mullaitivu and Puthukkudiyiruppu continued to shrink as a result of further SLA advances, the Sri Lankan government declared a limited ceasefire from 1–3 February 2009 to allow civilians to cross out of the war zone and into government-held territory. The LTTE ignored this declaration, however, using the pause to launch a counterattack and restricting the number of civilians allowed to leave its territory sometimes by shooting those who tried to escape (the LTTE's use of civilians as 'human shields'...). A number of motives underlay the desire of the LTTE to keep Tamil civilians in the conflict zone. Firstly, the LTTE wanted to maintain the outward appearance of a Tamil Eelam state with a territory and a population. Secondly, the presence of civilians in the conflict zone provided a buffer against the SLA. Thirdly, and relatedly, the LTTE calculated that the Sri Lankan military would continue to advance without regard for civilian casualties, and that this would prompt the international community to push for a ceasefire which would allow the LTTE time to regroup. (Richards (2014) 'An institutional history of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)', p. 64)
| 'Implementing the responsibility to protect: report of the Secretary-General', 12 January 2009, www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/63/677 (accessed 4 June 2016).
| R. Zongze, 'Responsible protection: building a safer world', China Institute of International Studies, 15 June 2012, www.ciis.org.cn/english/2012-06/15/content_5090912.htm. The following view was expressed from Delhi:
|
China had been strictly adhering to its policy of non-interference in internal affairs of other countries. This has enabled it to consistently support Sri Lanka in the UNHRC over the war crimes allegations. As opposed to this India's support had been hesitant and subject to internal pressures from Tamil Nadu. This has created a mental bias in Sri Lanka in favour of China. In the long term, increase in China's role in Sri Lanka's trade and diplomacy could affect India's strategic prospects well beyond Sri Lanka in the IOR. (R. Hariharan, Sri Lanka Guardian, 4 August 2014, www.srilankaguardian.org/2014/08/india-china-and-sri-lanka-uneasy.html (accessed 2 February 2016))
| O. Stuenkel, 'Responsible protection: Chinese norm entrepreneurship?', Post-Western World, 24 January 2015, www.postwesternworld.com/2015/01/24/responsible-protection-entrepreneurship/ (accessed 4 June 2016).
| The UN Mission in South Sudan took steps to protect some 65,000 civilians near Bor in 2014, opening its own compounds to take in those who had fled but meeting opposition from government troops and militia fighters. See D. Smith, 'South Sudan soldiers "try to force entry into UN base sheltering civilians"', The Guardian, 20 January 2014, www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/20/south-sudan-soldiers-united-nations-compound-shelter-civilians (accessed 10 May 2016).
| Law 387, as it is known, was adopted on 18 July 1997. It remains one of the world's most advanced pieces of legislation in this domain. See M.-H. Verney, 'Challenges remain in implementation of landmark Colombian law', UNHCR, 18 July 2007, www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2007/7/469e2c3b4/challenges-remain-implementation-landmark-colombian-law.html (accessed 28 May 2016).
| Interview with two high-ranking UNHCR officials (with extensive field experience) based in Geneva, 9 May 2016. The UNHCR undertook its own system-wide review, contributing to the Inter-Agency Standing Committee on the Centrality of Protection in Humanitarian Action, and applying new thinking on access to rights and innovation in response, for example in the Central African Republic.
| The 9 June 2016 hearings were held in Washington on Sri Lanka's democratic transition. See https://democrats-foreignaffairs.house.gov/legislation/hearings/sri-lanka-s-democratic-transition-new-era-us-sri-lanka-relationship. The US government had already initiated a special partnership programme with the GoSL as well as military assistance and new offers of aid.
| 'Art through the lens of war: Muttrupulliyaa...?', International Policy Digest, 17 September 2014, <http://intpolicydigest.org/2014/09/17/art-lens-muttrupulliyaa/> (accessed 12 June 2016).
| T. Paramsothy, 'Ritual & recovery in post-conflict Sri Lanka', Colombo Telegraph, 20 March 2015, www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/ritual-recovery-in-post-conflict-sri-lanka/ (accessed 22 May 2016).
| Credit for these observations goes in full to David Whaley, who was present at the Geneva proceedings in June 2016 and shared his record of them by email.
| General Augusto Pinochet led a seventeen-year regime in Chile that was responsible for mass human rights violations. He was indicted in Spain in 1998 and subsequently arrested in London. He died before being convicted but had over 300 criminal charges levelled against him.
| The Human Rights Council resolution of 2014 arose following non-compliance with 2013 UNHRC requests to Sri Lanka, but it lacked teeth or full sanctions, calling instead for a full investigation into allegations of human rights violations and war crimes committed at the end of the war. In light of the change of government in Colombo, an unusual step was taken by the High Commissioner to delay for six months the presentation of the ensuing report in 2015. See 'Zeid requests "one time only" deferral of key report on Sri Lanka conflict', OHCHR, 16 February 2015, www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15574 (accessed 2 August 2016). See also Oakland Institute (2016).
| 'Good governance will solve Geneva issue', Daily News, 1 June 2016, www.dailynews.lk/?q=2016/06/01/political/83381 (accessed 10 June 2016).
| Both the nature of the dance and the need for continual international interest are expressed by Nirmanusan Balasundaram thus:
|
Critics have noted that Sri Lanka has held the belief that prolonging this issue, through engaging in a process of time and space buying, will eventually lead to the eradication of the justice and accountability issue from the international agenda... Sri Lanka's president said in an interview that 'nations which had distanced themselves and the UN are now friendly with us. The loud cries of war crimes allegations have receded. The loud cries for setting up War Crimes Tribunal to probe the allegation have ceased too.' His comments serve as a clear indication of the absence of political will by the Sri Lankan government. ('Sri Lanka wants the world to forget about justice for war victims. Please don't', The Guardian, 27 June 2016, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/27/sri-lanka-wants-the-world-to-forget-about-justice-for-war-victims-please-dont (accessed 2 August 2016))
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INDEX
References to the endnotes are indicated by n preceding the page number.
51st Division, HQ built on LTTE graveyard,
57th Division, accused of war crimes,
58th Brigade, accused of war crimes,
A9 Highway, ,
abductions, , ; of Red Cross workers, see also schoolboys, abduction of
Abeysekera, Sunila,
Accelerated Mahaweli Development Programme,
accountability, , , , , , –, , , , , –, , , , , ; definition of processes of, ; quest for, –
Accra Agenda for Action,
Aceh, ; civil war in, –
Action Contre la Faim (ACF), , ; aid workers killed, , n, n
activism, transnational,
Afghanistan,
Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, n
aid, international: linked to reform or peace, ; regimes of, international, , –
Akashi, Yasashi,
Aleppo, no fire zones in,
All Ceylon Muslim Congress (ACMC),
All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC),
Alternative Peoples Forum see Samagi Human Rights Festival
Amman, Pottu,
Amnesty International, , , , , , ,
Amunugaman, Sarath,
Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities,
Anderson, Mary, , n
animal sacrifices, protests against,
Annan, Kofi, ,
Appadurai, A.,
Arasanayagam, Jean,
archeology, land appropriated for,
architectural heritage, destruction of,
Armitage, Richard,
Ashraf Nagar, women protest over land requisitions,
Ashton, Catherine,
Asian Development Bank (ADB), , , , n; debt owing to,
assassinations, n, n
Association of Parents of Missing Soldiers,
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN),
asylum applications: by Sri Lankans, ; by Tamils,
Athaullah, A. L. M.,
Aung San Suu Kyi, ,
Australia, issue of immigration in, , n
Australian Government Refugee Review Tribunal,
Austria,
Babakhel, Mohammad Ali,
Balasingham, Anton,
Balaya, Ravana,
Balendran, Jeyakumari, ; arrest of,
Ban Ki-Moon, , , , , , ; visit to Sri Lanka,
Bandara, Navarthne,
Bandaranaike, Sirimavo, n
Bandaranaike International Airport: development of, ; road link to,
Bandaranayake, Shirani, impeachment of, , , ,
Bangladesh, –,
Bar Association: members issued with death threats, ; protests by,
Bassa killer group, n
Bastian, Sunil, –,
Bathiutheen, Rishard,
Bayart, J.-F.,
BBC,
Belarus, ,
Bell Pottinger Group, –
Beltway company,
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (India), ,
Biafran War,
bilingualism,
Black July (1983), , , n
Blair, Tony, ,
Blake, Robert O., n
Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), , , , ; rise of, –
Bosnia, Western intervention in,
Boutros-Ghali, Boutros,
Brahimi, Lakhdar,
Bretton Woods system,
BRICS countries, , ,
Buddha, ; seen as originator of human rights, –; statues of, , , ,
Buddhism, , , n; construction of shrines and temples, , , ; engaged, ; establishment of holy sites, ; expansion of, ; monasteries as seats of learning, ; political, , , , n; precepts of, ; privileged role of, , ; stupas, , ; Theravada, , ; tourist routes, see also Sinhalese Buddhist identity
Buddhist centrality,
Buddhist majoritarianism, –,
Buddhist monks, , –, , , ; cooptation of, ; protest against gaming tourism, –
Burleigh, Peter, n
Burma / Myanmar, , , , , n; aid from,
Burman Buddhist identity,
Burmanisation, use of term,
Bush, George,
Bush, Kenneth, , , n
Butenis, Patricia, n
Cabraal, A.N.,
Cameron, David, visit to Jaffna, , ,
Canada, ; boycott of CHOGM, ; Tamil community in,
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
Cartwright, Silvia,
Carver, Fred,
Casino Crisis, –
caste dynamics in Sri Lanka, n
ceasefire, , , –, , , , , n
censorship, ,
Central Bank of Sri Lanka, , , n
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), World Factbook,
Centre for Human Rights,
Centre for Peace Alternatives,
Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), , n; documenting of war,
Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC),
Chaaminda, Sumith, Fishing in Turbulent Waters,
Chechnya, ; counter-insurgency in, ,
checkpoints and roadblocks,
child soldiers, , ; recruited by LTTE, n
China, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , n; aid agenda of, ; aid provided by, , , ; buys rubber from Sri Lanka, ; debt owing to, ; diplomatic support for Sri Lanka, ; funding provided by, –; gifts to Sri Lanka, ; imports its own workers, ; influence of (growing, , –; reduction of, –); land given to, ; loans from, , , , n; military aid from, , ; oil pipeline to, ; 'One China' policy, ; policy of non-interference, n; Sri Lanka imports from, n; statement on human rights, ; 'string of pearls' strategy of, ; supports UN policy on Syria,
China Communications Construction Company,
Chinese convicts, imported as labour, n
Christianity, , , n
Christians: attacks on, ; rites interfered with,
civil society: polarisation of, ; reduced space for, ; use of term, n
civilians: as casualties, , (denial of, ); death toll of, ; evacuation of, –; killing of, , ; protection of, , , , , n; used as human shields, , , n, n see also safe zones for civilians
Clinton, Hillary, ,
Co-Chair Group of States, ,
Colombia, forced displacements in,
Colombo: beautification of, ; port (development in, , , , ; privatisation of, n)
Colombo-Katunayake Expressway, costs of,
Colville, Rupert, n
Commission of Inquiry Act,
Commission on Global Governance,
Committee Against Torture (CAT),
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR),
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW),
Common Humanitarian Action Plan (CHAP),
Commonwealth, , ; Charter of, ; Sri Lanka membership of,
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), , –, , , –, , , ,
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative,
Commonwealth Law Conference,
Commonwealth Lawyers Association,
Commonwealth Legal Education Association,
Commonwealth Magistrates' and Judges' Association,
Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, –
consociationalism,
constitution, n; 13th amendment, , , , , n; 17th amendment, ; 18th amendment, , , , n; 19th amendment, ; of 1972, , n; of 1978, , , , ; rights accorded under, ; unitary nature of, – see also Donoughmore constitution and Soulbury constitution
constitutional reform, –,
Consultation Task Force,
Consultative Committee on Humanitarian Assistance,
Convention against Torture (CAT),
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC),
Coomaraswamy, Radhika,
corruption, –, , , , , , n, n; combatting of, , , n
Costa Rica,
Council of the EU,
counter-insurgency, , , , ,
counter-terrorism, , , , , n; methods of,
Cranford Johnson Robinson PR,
credit for achieving peace,
Crimea,
Cuba, , ,
cultural domination, –
culture wars, –
Cyclone Nargis,
Dalai Lama, n
dams, building of,
Darusman, Marzuki,
David, Kumar,
de-mining, , , ,
dead, respect for,
death squads, n
debt: management of, , ; sovereign, , n
defence spending,
demilitarisation, ,
Democratic People's Front (DPF),
Democratic Republic of Congo,
Democratic Republic of Korea,
Department for International Development (DFID),
Devanampiya Tissa, n
development: central control of, ; policy, reinvention of, see also unipolar command development
development assistance, shift in emphasis, –
devolution, –, ,
Dhanapala, Jayantha,
Dharmadasa, Visaka,
Dias, Jagath, ; accused of war crimes,
diaspora see Tamil diaspora
dirigisme in economic policies,
disappearances, , , , , , , , , , , , , , n see also abductions
displaced persons, –,
displacements, forced,
divide and rule, –
Divinegume plan,
'Do No Harm', principle of, , n
Doctors of the World,
Donoughmore constitution, n–
double minorities, concept of,
Duffield, Mark, , n
Dutch Burghers,
Dutthagamini, n
Dutugemunu, King, –, n
Eastern Awakening programme,
eastward turn of policy, ,
Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement (ETCA),
education, , , ; of former LTTE cadres,
Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), ,
Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS), , ,
Egypt, ,
Ekneligoda, Prageeth, n
Ekneligoda, Sandhya, , n
Elder, James, –
Elders, The,
elections, –, , , n; boycotting of, , ; for Eastern Provincial Council, ; for Northern Provincial Council, ; of 2009, ; of 2010, ; of 2015, ,
Eliasson, Jan, n
Elizabeth II, Queen,
Emergency Architects,
Ennals, Martin,
ethnic cleansing, n; use of term,
ethnocracy,
European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights,
European Union (EU), , , , , , ; requirement of accountability, –; suspends Sri Lanka's GSP status, ,
evictions, in Colombo,
extortion,
extrajudicial killings, , ,
F-7 fighters, gifted from China,
facial recognition software, n
family, ideology of, n
fear, fostering of,
federalism, ,
Fernando, Laksiri,
Fernando, Nimalka,
Fernando, Ruki,
fishermen, n
fishing industry, ; discrimination against, –, n; obstructed by mines,
'Five Hubs Plus Tourism' document,
Fonseka, Bhavani, –
Fonseka, Sarath, , , n, n
Ford Foundation, freezes aid to India, n
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Unit, –,
Forum Asia,
FORUT organisation,
Foucault, Michel,
Four Square Gospel Church, attack on,
Fowzie, A. H. M., ,
free speech see freedom of expression
freedom from torture, ,
Freedom from Torture group, n
Freedom House, report on Sri Lanka,
freedom of assembly,
freedom of expression, , , , , ,
Friday Forum, –,
Fujimori, Alberto,
Furedi, Frank,
G20 group,
Geneva Conventions, , , n; Protocols I and II,
Geneva Process, –,
genocide: charges of, ; use of term,
Georgia,
Germany, ,
Ghandi, Rajiv, assassination of,
global governance see governance, global
Global Leadership Forum,
Global Tamil Forum (GTF), , ,
globalisation, , ; concept of, –
Gonussa killer group, n
governance: global, (contested understandings of, –; definition of, ; features of, ; in Sri Lankan context, –; norms of, –; norms of, reshaping of, –; theory of, ); good, , n; use of term,
Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL), , , , , , , , , , , –; hire of lobbying firms, ; human rights violations by, ; 'Integrity of the Judicial System' resolution, ; non-answerability of, ; power-sharing discussions, see also Rajapaksa regime
governmentality, concept of,
Govigama caste, n
Grama Rajya,
graveyards, razing of,
grieving: cultural norms of, ; difficulties of,
Gunasekara, Tisaranee, ,
Gunawardena, Dinesh,
Hakeem, Rauff, –
halal food, criticism of,
Hambantota, ; construction of airport in, ; construction of oil refineries in, ; port development in, , , ; power plant in,
Hammurabi, n
Harare Declaration,
health, indicators for,
Herath, Viritha,
heritage, uses of, –
heteroglossia,
high security zones, , ,
Hindu nationalism,
Hindu sites: targetting of, ; razing of, ,
Hinduism,
Hindus, rites interfered with,
home-grown, meaning of, –
'home-grown solutions', , –
Hua Chunying,
hubs, ; concept of, –
human rights, , , , , , , , , , ; global norms of, ; monitoring of, n; observers, ; seen as originating from Buddha, –; transnational activism regarding, ; under threat globally, ; violations of, , –, , , , , , , , , , , –, , , n; underreporting of,
Human Rights Council see UN Human Rights Council
Human Rights Law Centre (Australia),
Human Rights Watch (HRW), , , , , ,
humanitarian corridors, ,
humanitarian imperative,
humanitarian intervention, use of term,
Humanitarian Operation: Factual analysis report,
'humanitarian pause', –
identity politics, instrumentalisation of,
Illangai Muhathuwaram, demolition of Ganesh temple,
impunity, , , , , , ; crisis of, ; of presidency, ,
Independent Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption,
Independent Commissions,
India, , , , , , , , –, , , , , , n, n; demonstrations in, ; foreign policy of, –, –, n; influence of, n; loan of Kapilavastu relics, –; military aid from, ; Tamils living in, ,
Indian Peacekeeping Force, attack on Jaffna,
Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement,
Indonesia, ,
infant mortality, rates of,
INFORM organisation,
infrastructure projects,
Ini Avan film,
insider-outsider dichotomy,
Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, –
Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies,
Inter-Agency Standing Committee on the Centrality of Protection in Humanitarian Action, n
Internal Review Panel on United Nations Action in Sri Lanka ... (Petrie Report), , , –
internally displaced persons (IDPs): relief for, ; resettlement of, , , ; statistics for,
international assistance, –
International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), ,
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), , , , , , ; required to close offices,
International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), , , , ; violation of,
International Criminal Court (ICC), ; Rome Statute,
International Crisis Group (ICG), , , , ; report,
International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC),
International Human Rights Association Bremen,
International Independent Group of Eminent Persons,
International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS),
International Monetary Fund (IMF), , , , , n; closes Sri Lanka office, –; offers credit facility, ,
International Organization for Migration (IOM), n
International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP),
International Working Group on Sri Lanka, , , , n
International Alert,
Internet,
internment of Tamils,
Investigating the Operations of Non-governmental Organisations, select committee,
Iran, ; aid from, , ; relations with Sri Lanka, n
Iraq, –; Western intervention in, ,
Iraq Body Count,
Irion, Mark,
Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka,
Islam,
Islamophobia,
Island at War documentary,
Israel, war in Gaza,
Jaffna Library, burning of, ,
Jana Sabha, –, n
Janathā Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), , , , , , , n, n; uprising of, –,
Japan, , , , ; aid from, , , , n
Japan peace conference,
Japanese peace groups,
Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), , , , ,
Jayasinghe, Amal,
Jayatilleka, Dayan, –,
Jayawardene, J. R., , , ,
Jayeram, Jayalalitha,
Jenkins, Ivor, n
Journal of Humanitarian Assistance,
journalists: control of, ; killings of,
judiciary, weakness of,
Kadirgamar, Lakshman,
Kagame, Paul, n
Kalyvas, S. N. The Logic of Violence in Civil War,
Kandyan convention,
Kandyan Kingdom, , n
Karava caste, n
Karthiaai (Karthikai),
Karuna group, , n
Kashmir, ; curfew in,
Katussa killer group, n
Keenan, Alan, ,
kidnappings, ; for ransom,
Kilinochchi, ; destruction of infrastructure in, ; women of,
Killing Fields documentary, –
Knaul, Gabriela,
Kobani, US bombing of,
Kohona, Palitha, , , ,
Kosovo, establishment of,
Kouchner, Bernard, ,
Kumaratunga, Chandrika, , , n, n
Kurunegala,
Lall, Aftab, –
land: issues of, ; ownership of, ; requisitioned by military, , n
languages: Chinese, ; English, , , , , , n; heterogeneity of, in Sri Lanka, n; problems of translation, ; Sinhala, , , , , , n, n, n (for singing of national anthem, , ; imposition of, , ); Tamil, , , , n, n
Latimer House Principles, ,
Law 387, n
Leahy, Patrick, n
Lee Kuan Yew,
Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), , , , , , , , , , , ; conclusions mothballed, ; hearings of, ; motivations of, ; paradox of, –; report of, (only published in English, )
Levick company,
Lewis, David,
liberalism, myopia of,
Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE), , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , , , , , , –, , , , , , –, , , n, n, n, n, n, n; access to imprisoned members, ; attempts to extort Muslim businesses, n; criticism of, ; defeat of, , , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , n; destruction of administration of, ; expulsion of Muslims, ; graveyards destroyed by military, ; human rights violations by, , , ; judges, training of, ; listed as terrorist organisation, , ; makes use of tsunami aid, n; surrender of troops, n; surveillance of, ; takes over Muttur, ; use of civilians as human shields, , n
Liberty International Group LLC, ,
Libya, ; aid from, ; NATO intervention in,
Lies Agreed Upon documentary, –
life expectancy, rates of,
literacy, ; rates of,
literary heritage, destruction of,
Liu, Joanne, n
Liu Jianchao,
Liu Xiaobo,
Liyanage, Sumanasiri,
Look East policy,
Lunstead, Jeffrey,
Maaveerar Naal (Heroes' Day),
Machiavelli, Niccolò, n
Mack, Connie,
Mackay, Peter, –
Madaya, siege of,
Madhu refugee camp, closure of,
Maha Sangha,
Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP),
Mahavamsa, n; as historical record,
Mahaweli Authority, –
Mahaweli Basin development scheme, n
Mahesan, Father P.,
Mahinda Chintana, , , , , n
Mahuruf, M., –
Majeed, Najeeb Abdul,
majoritarianism see Buddhist majoritarianism
Malaysia, , ; sedition law in,
Maleham, observance of,
Mani, Rama, , n
Manik Farm,
Mannar, discovery of mass grave at,
Māra, tempter figure, n
Martin, Ian, –
Marzoof, Saleem,
Matha film,
Mauritius, boycott of CHOGM,
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF),
Mel, N. de, –
Menon, Shivshankar, n
Mexico,
Miliband, David, ,
military, , ; as army of occupation, ; claims to act on behalf of people, –; involved in agriculture, , ; involved in economy, , ; seizure of land for bases,
Minority Rights Group International,
missing persons, , n see also disappearances
Mistura, Staffan de,
monuments see war monuments
Moro Islamic Liberation Front,
Mortimer, Edward,
mosques, desecration of, , ; destruction of, at Amuradhapura, ; ordered to relocate, ; under military occupation,
mother, centrality accorded to, n
mourning rituals, improvisation of,
Movement for Inter-Racial Justice and Equality (MIRJE),
Mullaitivu district, ; destruction of infrastructure in, ; women of,
Mullivaikkal hospital, shelling of, n
Muralitharan, Vinayagamurthi (alias Karuna),
Muslim sites, targetting of,
Muslims, , , , , n, n; attacks on, –, ; dress and customs (of women, ; vilification of, ); expulsion of, ; lack of protection for, ; maltreatment of, –, n; rioting against, ; rites interfered with,
Muttur, n; NGOs pressured to quit,
Myanmar see Burma/Myanmar
Nainativu, changing of name,
Nanayakara, Vasudeva,
Nandikadal Lagoon, war museum,
nation-state, , see also state, Westphalian model of
national anthem: to be sung in Sinhala, ; to be sung in two languages,
National Human Rights Council, establishment of,
National Policy on Local Government,
Nelson Mullins company,
Nepal,
Netherlands Institute of Human Rights,
neutrality, required of agencies,
New Maritime Silk Road,
NGO Forum see International Working Group on Sri Lanka
No Fire Zone documentary, ,
no fire zones, , , , , ,
Nobel Prize, award boycott by Sri Lanka,
nodes of authority,
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), , , ,
non-alignment,
non-governmental organisations (NGOs), , , , , , , , , , n; activities of, –; become targets, ; government's hostility towards, –; involvement of seen as neo-colonial, –; new encroachment of, –; not permitted to hold press conferences, –; ordered to quit Vanni, ; relocate to Vavuniya, ; required to act under remit of Department of Defence, , ; staff threatened and intimidated, see also Action Contre la Faim
non-interference, –, n; concept of,
Non-official Group of Friends of Sri Lanka,
Non-Violent Peace Force,
norms, global, concept of, n
Norochcholai, power plant in,
North Korea,
Norway, , ; engagement in peace-brokering, , , , , , , –, , , , n
nuclear power,
Obama, Barack, n
Office of National Unity and Reconciliation (ONUR),
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), , , ; attempts to discredit, ; criticism of,
OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL), , , ; deadline for submissions, ; report, –,
'One Belt One Road', n
Operation Liberation,
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD): aid from, ; Development Assistance Committee (DAC), ; principles of, n
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), –, –; visit to Colombo,
Ossetia,
outnumbering, perception of,
outside interference, rejection of,
outsiders, –; concept of, (used as blanket term, )
Oxfam,
Pakistan, , , , , n; military supplies from, , n
Panama, Western intervention in,
Panel of Experts, , n
para-militaries, ; war crimes of,
parallel structures, establishment of,
Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, –
parliamentary select committees (PSC), –
parliamentary systems of government,
Pasikudah village,
Pathmanathan, Kumaran, –; arrest of,
Patriotic Front,
Patten, Chris,
Patton Boggs LLP,
peace: 'hybrid', ; promotion of, ; use of term,
Peace and Conflict Impact Analysis tool,
Peace Brigades International (PBI),
peace dividend, ; use of term,
'Peace Village' (Vavuniya),
peacebuilding: concept of, ; illiberal, –; liberal, , , ; use of term,
Peiris, G. L., , , , n; visit to UK,
Peiris, Mohan,
pensions, reform of, –
People's Alliance Government,
People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), , , n
People's Revolutionary Army (PRA), n
Perera, A. P.,
Perera, Dilan,
Perera, Jehan,
Perera, Kusal, –
Perera-Rajasingham, Nimanthi,
Permanent People's Tribunal,
Peru,
Petrie, Charles, –
Petrie Report see Internal Review Panel on United Nations Action in Sri Lanka
Philippines,
Pillay, Navaneethan, , , , , , n–, n, n, n; visit to Colombo,
Pinochet, Augusto, n
Pinto-Jayawardena, Kishali, ,
Plantation Association,
Platform for Freedom,
ports, development of, , , ,
Post Tsunami Operational Management Structure,
post-conflict projects, , –
post-war recovery, models of, –
poverty, reduction of, , , , ,
Power, Samantha, n,
power sharing, ,
Powura, Hela Bodu,
Prabhakaran, Velupillai, , , , , n
Pradeshiya Sabhas,
Premadasa, R., , ; death of, n
presidency, executive, –
President's Multi-ethnic Experts Committee,
presidential system, –; calls for abolition of,
Presidential Task Force, , , ,
Prevention of Terrorism Act, , , ,
privatisation, , n
proportional representation, –
protection, ; as norm of UN,
Protective Accommodation Rehabilitation Centres (PARC),
public relations campaigns of GoSL, –,
Public Security Ordinance,
push back, within UN system, , –
Putin, Vladimir,
Qin Gang,
Quakers, training manual on mediation,
Quick, Ian, –
race riots, ,
Rae, Bob, n
railways: building of, ; Palai to Kankesanthurai,
Rajapaksa, Basil, , , , , , n
Rajapaksa, Chamal, ; appointed Speaker,
Rajapaksa, Gotabaya, , –, , , , , , , n, n
Rajapaksa, Mahinda, , , – passim, , , , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , n, n; address to Non-Aligned Movement, ; address to UN General Assembly, , ; agrees to inquiry into disappearances and killings, ; called by Ban Ki-moon, ; claims to Buddhist values, ; elected prime minister, , , ; electoral defeat of, , , n; executive presidency of, –; foreign policy of, ; governing responsibilities of, ; honorifics of, ; likened to King Dutugemunu, , ; manifesto aims of, ; opposition to international agencies, , ; presented as champion of a small island, ; protest walk of, n; summons against, ; views on peace initiatives, ; views on outsiders, ; visit to Northern Ireland,
Rajapaksa regime, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , n; disillusionment with, ; split in, ; use of state media,
Rajapaksa model,
Rampton, David,
Rathnapriya, Saman,
Ratner, Steven, , n
Ravaya, Sinhala,
reconciliation, , , , , , –, , , , , , , , , ; concept of, n; through development,
recovery, competing models for, –
Red Cross, workers abducted,
regime change, use of term,
regional hub, concept of, –
rehabilitation,
Rehman, Iskander, n
religion, privileging of,
religious militancy,
religious observance, controls over,
religious shrines, destruction of,
resettlement of populations, , ,
responsibility to protect (R2P),
Richards, Paul,
right to information,
Right to Information Act,
roads: building of, , ; to Bandaranaike airport,
Rodgers, Malcolm, –
Rohingya Muslims, n; attacks on,
Ropers, Norbert,
Rubber-Rice Pact,
rule of law, , ,
Rumaraghe, Chandra, –
Russia, , , , ,
Russian Federation,
Rwanda, n; genocide in,
Sabah,
safe zones for civilians, , n, n see also no fire zones
Samagi Human Rights Festival,
Samaraweera, Mangala, , ,
Samarawickrama, Malik,
Sampanthan, Rajavarothiam, , ,
Sampur: power plant at, ; special economic zone,
Sangha, Buddhist,
Saravanamuttu, Paikiasothy, , , ,
Sarawak,
Saudi Arabia,
schoolboys, abduction of, ,
Secretariat for Muslims (SFM),
Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium,
Securities Exchange Commission (SEC),
security forces, downsizing and retraining of,
Segal, Hugh,
self-determination,
Sen, Amartya,
Senanayake, Dudley,
sexual violence, ,
Shama, Kamalesh, ,
Shanie,
Shining Path, defeat of,
Silva, Harsha De,
Silva, Shavendra, –
Silva, de, J., ,
Singapore, ; viewed as corrupt state, –
Singapore model, , –, , , , n, n; criticism of,
Singh, Manmohan, , , n
Sinha le campaign,
Sinhala majoritarianism,
'Sinhala only' policy,
Sinhalese Buddhist identity, , , , , , n; dominance of,
Sinhalese ethnic group, , , –, , , ; as majority population, ; dominance of,
Sinhalese farmers, privileging of,
Sinhalese nationalism, ,
Sinhalisation, ,
Sirisena, Maithripala, , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, n, n, n; elected president, –; election campaign of, –
small states, , –, n; agency of,
Sobitha, Maduluwawe,
Social Architects, The, n; report,
social gatherings, permissions required for,
social media, use of, ; for hate campaigns, –
social welfare schemes, –
Solheim, Eric,
Somalia, Western intervention in,
Sooka, Yasmin, , n, n
Soulbury constitution, –, n
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), ,
South Sudan, ,
Southern Expressway,
Southphalia, use of term, –
sovereignty, , , , , ,
spatial penetration, –
special economic zones,
Sri Lanka: as Wonder of Asia, , ; declared primacy of Buddhism in, ; economic growth in, ; in international community, –; per capita income in, ; perception of corruption in, ; public debt of, ; seen as development miracle, see also Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL)
Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice –, ,
Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine,
Sri Lanka Free Media Group, members attacked,
Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), , , n
Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), , ,
'Sri Lankan model', , , ,
Sri Lankans in UN peacekeeping forces,
Standing International Forum on Ethnic Conflict, Development and Human Rights (SIFEC),
state: non-Westphalian models of, ; post-colonial, , ; unipolar, –, –; unitary, , –; Westphalian model of, , see also small states
state of emergency,
State Security Agency (South Africa),
statistics for conflict deaths, , , –
Steve Hedges and Majority Group LLC,
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI),
streets, renaming of,
strikes, ; in Tamil Nadu, ; of nurses,
Structural Adjustment Programs,
Subramanian, S., This Divided Island,
Suddhodana, King, n
Sugitharaja, Subramaniyam,
suicide, of small farmers,
suicide bombers, pioneered by LTTE, n
Sultana, Gulbin,
Sunday Times, report on lobbying firms, –
Supreme Court, ,
Suresh, V., n
Swamy, Subramanian, n
Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils,
Swiss Foundation for Mine Action,
Switzerland meeting, statement of, –
Syria, foreign policy decisions regarding,
Taiwan,
Tajikistan,
Tamil Nayakkar monarchs,
Tamil Arasu Kadchi (TAK),
Tamil diaspora, , –, , , , , , n, n, n, n; in USA, ; investment by, ; lobbying by, ; surveillance of, ; viewed as threat,
Tamil Eelam, , , , n
Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), , , n
Tamil Eelam Supporters Oganisation (TESO),
Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puhkal (TMVP), , , n
Tamil Nadu, , , n; strike in,
Tamil National Alliance (TNA), , , , , , , , , , , ; councillors go into hiding,
Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), , ,
Tamil websites, blocking of,
Tamils, , , , , , , , , , , , , n, n–; 1993 killings of, ; attacks on, ; death toll of, , ; demand for self-determination, ; evicted from homes, ; exodus of, n; fishermen, targeting of, –; grievances of, (non-acceptance of, ); lack of voice, –; memorials not permitted for, ; pogrom against, n; recognition for the dead and missing, ; registration of travellers, –; rights of, see also India, Tamils in, and Tamil diaspora
Tamils Against Genocide,
teachers, required to do military-style training,
Temple of Tooth, Kandy, n
Terrorism Investigation Division (TID),
terrorist, use of term, –,
Thailand,
Thein Sein,
Thera, Madille Pagnaloka,
Thompson Advisory Group, , n
Tibet, ,
Timor-Leste, independence of,
Tiruchelvam, Neelan, n
Tokyo Donor Conference on Reconstruction and Development of Sri Lanka,
torture, , , , , n see also freedom from torture
Torture Victims Protection Act (USA),
tourism, ; involving gaming, see also war tourism
transition, ,
transitional justice, , , ,
Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE), , , , n, n
Transparency International, –,
TRIAL organisation,
Trincomalee: killing of students in (Trinco Five), , ; port development in,
Truth and Reconciliation Commission, promotion of,
truth commissions,
tsunami (December 2004), , , –, , –, ; relief effort, –, n, n, n (involvement of US Marines in, ), response to,
Tsunami Affected Areas Program,
Turkey,
Ukraine,
Umar ibn al-Khattab, n
United Nations (UN), , , , , , , , , , , ; advisory panel, proposal of, ; assistance rejected by Sri Lankan government, ; computer system, external surveillance of, ; demonstrations against, ; diplomacy of, ; false allegations against, ; gagging order on agencies of, ; morale hit by killing of staff members, ; protests against, ; regime non-cooperation with, ; Report of the Secretary General's Panel of Experts, –; report on atrocities, ; rescue convoy, ; resistance to interference of, ; Rights Up Front report, , n; threats against staff, ; withdraws staff from Vanni, – see also UN system
UN Charter, , ,
UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), ,
UN Committee on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism,
UN Convention Against Corruption,
UN Development Programme (UNDP),
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, , , , , ,
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), , , , , –, n; census of IDPs,
UN Human Rights Commission,
UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), , –, , , , , , , , , –, , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , n, n, n; criticism of, ; GoSL sponsored resolution debated, , ; lobbying of, ; mandate of, ; petition presented to, ; Resolution 19/2, ; Resolution 22/1, ; Resolution 25/1, –; Resolution 30/1, ; resolution of 2014, –, ; resolution of 2015, ,
UN Independent Review Panel, ,
UN Mission in South Sudan, n
UN Office for Project Servces (UNOPS), ,
UN Panel of Experts, , , , , , , , n, n
UN Security Council, –, , , ; debate on protection of civilians, ; lobbying of,
UN Special Advisory Panel,
UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief,
UN system, , , , , –, , , , , , , , , , n (failures of, ; Sri Lanka's contribution to, (in peacekeeping forces, ))
UN Universal Periodic Review,
UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, ,
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), , ,
unipolar command development, –
unipolarity, use of term, n
United Bhikku Front (UBF),
United Kingdom (UK), , , , , ; aid to Sri Lanka, reduction of, ; Tamil community in,
United National Party (UNP), , , , , ,
United People's Freedom Party (UPFA), , ,
United States of America (USA), , , , , , , , , , , , n, n; acquisition of oil tank farm in Trinco, ; foreign policy of, –; lobbying of, ; march on Colombo embassy of, ; military aid from, ended, ; resolution at Human Rights Council, ; withdraws development aid,
US Marines, involvement in tsunami emergency,
US Pacific Command (PACOM), , n, n
US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, report on Sri Lanka, –
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ,
Universal Periodic Review,
University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) (UTHR (J)), –,
Uthuru Wasanthaya,
Uvin, Peter, Aiding Violence,
Uyghur American Association, n–
Vadamarachchi region,
Vamsa tradition of historiography,
Vanni, , , ; agencies and NGOs removed from, , ; assault on, –; chieftaincies of, ; civilians trapped in, ; death toll in, ; evacuation of civilians from, n–; military operations in, , , , , ,
Vavuniya, ; demonstration in, ; insecurity in,
Victory Day, renamed to Remembrance Day,
Vieira de Mello, Sérgio,
Vietnam,
Vigo, Julian, n
Vijaya, Prince,
village names, changed to Sinhalese names,
violence: concept of, ; 'meaningless',
Voice of America,
Waduge, Shenali, –
war crimes, , , , , , , , , , , , , n, n, n; investigation of, , ; issue of extra-territoriality, ; of GoSL, , , , , ; of LTTE, , , n
'war for peace',
war monuments, erection of, –
war on terror, , , , , , ,
war tourism, –
Washington Consensus,
Watchlist on Trafficking in Persons,
Weerawansa, Wimal,
Weiss, Gordon, The Cage, ,
Welikala, Asanga, –
Whaley, David, , , n
White Flag incident,
Wickrematunge, Lasantha, funeral of,
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#include "gtest/gtest.h"
#include "../a2o/utils/geometry/Angle.h"
#include "../a2o/utils/geometry/LineSegment.h"
#include <eigen3/Eigen/Core>
#include <eigen3/Eigen/Dense>
#include <cmath>
using namespace A2O;
using namespace std;
using namespace Eigen;
namespace {
class LineSegmentTest: public ::testing::Test {
protected:
LineSegmentTest() {};
virtual ~LineSegmentTest() {};
virtual void SetUp() {};
virtual void TearDown() {};
};
TEST_F(LineSegmentTest, testIsOnSegmentAbove180) {
double radius = 2;
double length = (2 * M_PI * radius) * 0.75;
double angle = length / radius;
LineSegment segment = LineSegment(Pose2D(0, 0), length, angle);
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(0, 2)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, -1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1.5, 0.1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, 1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, 2)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, 3)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1.5, 3.9)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, 5)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, -1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1.5, 0.1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, 1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, 2)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, 3)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1.5, 3.9)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, 5)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-3, 1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1.9, 1.5)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, 1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(0, 1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, 1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1.9, 1.5)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(3, 1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-3, 3)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1.9, 3.5)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, 3)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(0, 3)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, 3)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1.9, 3.5)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(3, 3)));
}
TEST_F(LineSegmentTest, testIsOnSegmentAboveNeg180) {
double radius = -2;
double length = (2 * M_PI * radius) * -0.75;
double angle = length / radius;
LineSegment segment = LineSegment(Pose2D(0, 0), length, angle);
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(0, -2)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, 1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1.5, -0.1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, -1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, -2)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, -3)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1.5, -3.9)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, -5)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, 1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1.5, -0.1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, -1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, -2)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, -3)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1.5, -3.9)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, -5)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-3, -1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1.9, -1.5)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, -1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(0, -1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, -1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1.9, -1.5)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(3, -1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-3, -3)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1.9, -3.5)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, -3)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(0, -3)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, -3)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1.9, -3.5)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(3, -3)));
}
TEST_F(LineSegmentTest, testIsOnSegmentBelow180) {
double radius = 2;
double length = (2 * M_PI * radius) * 0.25;
double angle = length / radius;
LineSegment segment = LineSegment(Pose2D(0, 0), length, angle);
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(0.1, 2)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, -1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1.5, 0.1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, 1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, 2)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, 3)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1.5, 3.9)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, 5)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, -1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1.5, 0.1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, 1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, 2)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, 3)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1.5, 3.9)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, 5)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-3, 1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1.9, 1.5)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, 1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(0, 1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, 1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1.9, 1.5)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(3, 1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-3, 3)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1.9, 3.5)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, 3)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(0, 3)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, 3)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1.9, 3.5)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(3, 3)));
}
TEST_F(LineSegmentTest, testIsOnSegmentBelowNeg180) {
double radius = -2;
double length = (2 * M_PI * radius) * -0.25;
double angle = length / radius;
LineSegment segment = LineSegment(Pose2D(0, 0), length, angle);
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(0.1, -2)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, 1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1.5, -0.1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, -1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, -2)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, -3)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1.5, -3.9)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, -5)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, 1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1.5, -0.1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, -1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, -2)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, -3)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1.5, -3.9)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, -5)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-3, -1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1.9, -1.5)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, -1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(0, -1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, -1)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1.9, -1.5)));
ASSERT_TRUE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(3, -1)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-3, -3)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1.9, -3.5)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(-1, -3)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(0, -3)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1, -3)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(1.9, -3.5)));
ASSERT_FALSE(segment.isOnSegment(Vector2d(3, -3)));
}
TEST_F(LineSegmentTest, testGetDistancePos) {
double radius = 2;
double length = (2 * M_PI * radius) * 0.25;
double angle = length / radius;
LineSegment segment = LineSegment(Pose2D(0, 0), length, angle);
ASSERT_NEAR(segment.getDistanceTo(Vector2d(0, 0)), 0, 0.0001);
ASSERT_NEAR(segment.getDistanceTo(Vector2d(2, 0)), 0.828427, 0.0001);
ASSERT_NEAR(segment.getDistanceTo(Vector2d(1, 2)), 1, 0.0001);
ASSERT_NEAR(segment.getDistanceTo(Vector2d(0, 1.9)), 1.9, 0.0001);
ASSERT_NEAR(segment.getDistanceTo(Vector2d(0, 2)), 2, 0.0001);
ASSERT_NEAR(segment.getDistanceTo(Vector2d(0.1, 2)), 1.9, 0.0001);
ASSERT_NEAR(segment.getDistanceTo(Vector2d(0, 1)), 1, 0.0001);
}
TEST_F(LineSegmentTest, testGetDistanceNeg) {
double radius = -2;
double length = (2 * M_PI * radius) * -0.25;
double angle = length / radius;
LineSegment segment = LineSegment(Pose2D(0, 0), length, angle);
ASSERT_NEAR(segment.getDistanceTo(Vector2d(0, 0)), 0, 0.0001);
ASSERT_NEAR(segment.getDistanceTo(Vector2d(2, 0)), 0.828427, 0.0001);
ASSERT_NEAR(segment.getDistanceTo(Vector2d(1, -2)), 1, 0.0001);
ASSERT_NEAR(segment.getDistanceTo(Vector2d(0, -1.9)), 1.9, 0.0001);
ASSERT_NEAR(segment.getDistanceTo(Vector2d(0, -2)), 2, 0.0001);
ASSERT_NEAR(segment.getDistanceTo(Vector2d(0.1, -2)), 1.9, 0.0001);
ASSERT_NEAR(segment.getDistanceTo(Vector2d(0, -1)), 1, 0.0001);
}
}
|
Safety Assessment of Alkyl Phosphates as Used in Cosmetics The Expert Panel assessed the safety of 28 alkyl phosphates and concluded that these ingredients are safe in the current practices of use and concentration when formulated to be nonirritating. The ingredients in the alkyl phosphate family share a common phosphate core structure, and vary by the identity of the alkyl chains attached therein. Most of the alkyl phosphates function as surfactants in cosmetic ingredients; however, the triesters function as plasticizers rather than surfactants. The Panel reviewed the available animal and clinical data to determine the safety of these ingredients. |
RLI earnings call for the period ending September 30, 2018.
Good morning, and welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the RLI Corp. Third Quarter Earnings Teleconference. At this time, I'd like to inform you that this conference is being recorded, and that all participants are in a listen-only mode. At the request of the company, we will open the conference up for questions and answers after the presentation. Before we get started, let me remind everyone that through the course of the teleconference, RLI management may make comments that reflect their intentions, beliefs, and expectations for the future. As always, these forward-looking statements are subject to certain risk factors, which could cause actual results to differ materially. These risk factors are listed in the company's various SEC filings, including in the annual Form 10-K, which should be reviewed carefully.
The Company has filed a Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission that contains the press release announcing third quarter results. RLI management may make reference during the call to operating earnings and earnings per share from operations, which are non-GAAP measures of financial results. RLI's operating earnings and earnings per share from operations consist of net earnings after the elimination of after tax realized investment gains or losses. RLI's management believes this measure is useful in gauging core operating performance across reporting periods, but may not be comparable to other company's definitions of operating earnings. The Form 8-K contains reconciliation between operating earnings and net earnings. The Form 8-K and press release are available at the company's website at www.rlicorp.com.
I will now turn the conference over to RLI's Vice President, Corporate Development, Mr. Aaron Jacoby. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Good morning to everyone. Welcome to the RLI earnings call for the third quarter of 2018. Joining me on today's call are Jon Michael, Chairman and CEO; Craig Kliethermes, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Tom Brown, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
I'm going to turn the call over to Tom first to give some brief opening comments on the quarter's financial results. Then, Craig will talk about operations and market conditions. Next, we'll open the call to questions, and Jon will finish up with some closing comments. Tom?
Thanks, Aaron, and good morning, everyone. Last night, we reported operating earnings of $0.46 per share. Other key figures were a topline growth of 8%, a combined ratio of 96, and investment income growth of 15%. I would like to highlight a few events and trends driving these numbers.
First, from a topline perspective, our growth was driven by products across our portfolio. Our casualty segment was up 9%, property was up 14%, and surety was roughly flat due to competitive pressures in energy and commercial. However, miscellaneous exhibited positive growth as a result of recent technology investments. We believe that our broad-based growth is a testament to our diversified business model. Craig will go into further detail on some products trends in a minute.
In the quarter, Hurricane Florence had a $6 million net impact, which is the equivalent of $0.11 per share, or three combined ratio points on an overall basis. Hurricane Michael's obviously a fourth quarter event, and it's too soon to discuss the financial impact. Also impacting the quarter was $10 million of net favorable reserve development on prior accident years, with each of our segments benefiting. Product contributions were fairly broad-based, with notable amounts from our umbrella products, general liability, professional liability, marine, as well as modest reductions to prior year catastrophe reserves. While the net reserve benefit was down on a quarter-only basis, from a year-to-date perspective, favorable development increased underwriting income by $35 million in 2018, compared to last year's $32 million benefit. Despite the Florence impact, our property segment turned in at a 93 combined ratio. Surety continued to shine with a 76 combined , and our casualty segment reported a 101.5 combined ratio.
We've spoken quite a bit in the past about the cautious approach we apply in our reserving practices when it comes to newer products, as well as longer tail lines exhibiting sizable growth. This is noticeable in the casualty segment, where we realized double-digit growth during the past four quarters.
Investment income remained a strong contributor to earnings in the quarter. It was up 15% in the quarter compared to the third quarter of 2017 on a pre-tax basis. Our healthy operating cash flow, which stands at $163 million year-to-date, and growing investment asset base allows us to continue putting new money to work in a higher yield environment without sacrificing credit quality.
Equity and earnings from Maui Jim and Prime were down modestly compared to the third quarter of 2017, but still a meaningful contributor to our overall operating earnings. Through three quarters this year, we stand at 93 combined ratio with 11% topline growth. These are numbers to be proud of and a signal of the strength of our franchise.
And with that, I'll turn it over to Craig. Craig?
Thanks, Tom. Good morning, everyone. As Tom mentioned, we were able to report another quarter of profitable growth, despite the impact of Hurricane Florence. Overall, we grew the top line 8.5%, slightly off the pace of more recent quarters. Growth continues to be driven by a combination of newer products gaining scale, underlying rate increases in select products, and organic growth in exposures. We have invested in technology to improve the ease of doing business and increased sales and marketing efforts to broaden relationships and awareness of our products. This has paid off, as we continue to see growth across most of the products in our portfolio. Our consistent underwriting appetite and deep knowledge in our chosen markets provide a safe harbor to our distribution partners and customers from the irrational behavior of many competitors in the marketplace.
I will provide a little more detail by segment. In casualty, we grew topline 9% for the quarter while reporting a small underwriting loss. The underwriting loss is largely driven by our prudent approach to booking faster-growing, newer, or long-tail products. Many of the newer products that we have grown are in the casualty segment and include energy liability, small account binding authority, cyber liability, and our reinsurance relationship with Prime. Reported losses for these newer products have been at or below our loss expectations, but it is still too early to definitively declare success. These products make up about 15% of our casualty premium and about half of the growth year-to-date.
Elsewhere in casually, both our commercial and personal umbrella businesses continued to grow at double-digit rates for the quarter and the year while generating underwriting profits. We have achieved about 5% rate increase in these products for the year. Our professional liability unit, which focuses on design and miscellaneous professionals, turned in very good underwriting results and continued to grow modestly, up 3% for the quarter.
Finally, topline for transportation, while up 8% year-to-date, was down 10% for the quarter, resulting from the loss of a couple of large accounts. We are still upbeat about the opportunities, given our deep knowledge and long track record of success. We continue to achieve meaningful rate increases, with rates up 8% in this business for the quarter. Our underwriters will remain disciplined and be selective as opportunities arise.
In property, we grew 14% for the quarter and reported a 93 combined ratio, despite a 16-point impact from Hurricane Florence. Growth continues across all of our major products in this segment. New business submissions are up in excess of 10%, and the market continues to come to us as a reaction to more recent catastrophe activity, as well as the pain being felt in the London market.
Our wind rates were up about 6% for the quarter, while earthquake rates were closer to flat. From a rate level perspective, we expect that the devastating impact of last week's Hurricane Michael will keep a floor under the current pricing environment. From a focus perspective, our number one priority is to help our affected customers get back on their feet as quickly as possible, and those efforts are already under way.
Our surety segment was effectively flat on the topline while reporting a 76 combined ratio for the quarter. We are still achieving some growth in our transactional surety businesses, while the larger account-driven business remains much more competitive. The improved economy has moderately increased demand for bonds, but we are still challenged by the excess capacity being put to work in this segment. We are continuing to invest in technology, marketing, and the customer experience as ways to widen our moat and add even more value to the deep customer and distribution relationships we have in surety.
Overall, a respectable quarter, given a few headwinds. Market conditions remain relatively stable, with a few pockets where we can get rate in excess of loss cost. On a year-to-date basis, premium was up 11% on a 93 combined ratio, a testament to our underwriting and strength and diversification of our product portfolio. We will continue to stay focused on the things we can control, and take advantage of the opportunities as they arise. Our standard for excellence is very high at RLI. Our associates embrace the challenges we face because we are different, because we are disciplined, and because we are owners. RLI will remain focused on our founding principles of acquiring great talent, sharing rewards, empowering an underwriting culture, and providing exceptional customer service. Results will follow. Thank you.
I'll now turn it back to Aaron to open it up for questions.
Thanks, Craig. We can now open the call up for Q&A.
Thank you, sir. The question and answer session will begin at this time. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset before pressing any numbers. Should you have a question, please press *1 on your telephone. If you wish to withdraw your question, please press *2. Your question will be taken in the order that it is received. Please stand by for your first question.
Our first question will come from Randy Binner with B. Riley FBR.
Hey, good morning. Thanks. I had a couple. The first is on casualty. So, Craig, you mentioned that you have some newer products in energy, some small account and cyber, among others, and that was half the year-to-date growth, and so, you're being prudent there. Is that prudence what drove the underlying loss ratio or the actual year loss take higher in that segment and the casualty segment? Because it's about -- on a linked quarter basis, it's up about 2.5%, which probably stands out to people. It's actually down year-over-year. But is it those activities that's doing it, or is it more on the transportation side?
Randy, this is Craig. So, I mean, transportation, I don't think we've changed our booking ratios for over about a year. So, it's not necessarily transportation. But yes, a lot of that growth is coming from those products that we tend to book a little higher starting out. We don't really have a track record in some of those. We do the best we can looking at industry results and people's past track records to try to figure out where to set the initial booking ratio. And a lot of that growth -- as I mentioned, about half of our growth in casualty came out of those products.
Okay. So, is that -- as you look forward, would you kind of expect similar levels of growth in those areas?
Well, I mean, I can't predict the future. They're not at scale yet, so I would predict further growth. But, as with any growth trajectory, it's in the -- I mean, these products have not been around like -- I mean, they've been around for a couple years. So, these aren't like, products we started this year. So, you're gonna see a typical growth trajectory over the first two or three years where you grow at a pretty rapid pace, and then things start to plateau a bit. Not flat, but the rate of growth starts to slow. So, we would expect the rates of growth on some of these products to start to slow over the next couple years, I would expect.
Okay. And then, jumping to -- just on transportation, you mentioned you're getting an 8% rate across the book. Is there any way for you to characterize the rate difference that the two accounts you lost got at their renewal versus what you had wanted?
I couldn't tell you the specific of those. We would typically price every account at a level that we would be comfortable, and someone clearly came in underneath us. And usually, we don't lose accounts, just so you know, by a small amount. I mean, our customer service and our knowledge in that space, our claims handling, I think people were willing to pay a difference in that space for us. So, people are not beating us by 5%, 10%, even 15%. A lot of times when we lose those accounts, we lose them by 20%, 25%. And it's not one carrier. It's multiple competition in that space.
We will now take our next question from Christopher Campbell with KBW.
Yes, hi. Good morning, gentlemen.
I guess my first question is kind of the premium growth mix. How much of the property and casualty growth is rates versus exposure? And then, I guess, kind of where are you seeing the largest opportunities in casualty right now?
Christopher, this is Craig. I mean, I would say -- now this is overall, not just in casualty -- but overall, probably about a quarter, 25% or so, 20% to 25% is from rate increases. And then overall, a third or so of this overall business is new products, growth in new exposures and new products. And then the remaining part is growth in exposures of products we've been in for quite some time.
Okay, got it. That's very helpful. I guess the second question is just kind of on the interplay between your core loss ratio trends and reserve development year-over-year. So, if I look across each segment, the core loss ratio is improving year-over-year, but then reserve releases are down. I mean, I get part of this can be mix. But I'm thinking, if you're having -- if reserve redundancies are getting thinner because you're increasing your loss mix, then why wouldn't we see that in higher core loss ratio hits? I mean, all else equal.
I mean, Chris, I'll answer this question, and Tom might want to jump in. But, the -- I mean, our information would indicate our releases have been down -- are bigger than they have been year-to-date. Certainly for the quarter, it was a lower release than it was last year this quarter. But in aggregate, I think we're ahead of where we were last year.
Chris is -- yeah, right. I think Craig caught the tail end of it. For the year-to-date, it is up, as I mentioned earlier. $35 million year-to-date in 2018 compared to $32 million year-to-date last year. And I do think, back to Craig's point, we are cautious on some of those newer products, as well as the longer tail excess type products as well, as they've shown some growth.
Got it. And is that why we're seeing the lower core loss ratios year-over-year, is because you guys are like switching the book more to excess? Like raising where you guys attach on the loss?
Christopher, I don't think that's necessarily true. I mean, we have seen some growth in our commercial and personal umbrella products, as I mentioned before. But, I don't think that growth is really necessarily outpacing our overall growth in casualty. So, I don't think -- there's no conscious effort to try to move to a higher attachment point or anything like that for our book of business.
Okay, got it. Very helpful. And then, can we get some color on what's driving the large tax benefit this quarter, and then should we think about that going forward?
Yeah. Chris, it's Tom Brown. The tax benefit is kind of -- obviously starts with the tax reform from last year, which was down to 21%. And then, as we've had little less underwriting, and that's gonna have a little effect because some of the tax preferenced items. And we did have, on the tax preferenced items, as you get a benefit from some of the exercise of options has reduced it. So really, comparatively speaking, we have about $0.01 impact in the third quarter on results of tax reform. And I think if I recall correctly, it's about $0.13 for the nine months year-to-date.
Okay, great. And then, just one final one, if I may. So, as we go into the fourth quarter, how should we be thinking about the special dividend, especially given how strong you guys have been growing in property and casualty lines? And will the dividend be lower year-over-year because you guys are gonna need more capital to capitalize on the opportunities that you're seeing in the market?
Like before, our preference is to use our capital. But if we have excess capital that we can't deploy, we'll pay a special dividend. And that's all we're going to say about that at this time.
It depends on the mix and what our expectations are. So, no. The answer is no.
Okay. Well, great. Well, thanks for all the answers. Best of luck for the rest of the year.
We will now take questions from Jeff Schmidt with William Blair.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Question on the commercial casualty underlying loss ratio. It looks to be about 70%. And other than last year, if you go historically, it looks to be under 65%. That just seems like a big increase just for what's going on with some of those newer products and the conservative approach there. Is there -- now, I know you'd spoken in the past about kind of some negative legal trends. Is there any more you can say about that or anything you're seeing on that front?
Jeff, this is Craig. I mean, again, we are still seeing growth in aggregate or year-to-date in transportation, which is when we did obviously have a few challenges couple of years back. We continue to be cautious there in light of what we saw a couple years ago. We think we're out in front of it, and we've gotten a lot of rates since then. We've done a lot of reunderwriting. Trends have been good so far. But we're more of a wait-and-see attitude in regards to that.
The other product that I mentioned I think we grew is our commercial umbrella and our personal umbrella. Those are excess businesses that I think someone asked previously about. And those have longer tails. And although early returns have been very favorable, given some of the trends we saw in transportation, not that we've seen those come to light in any of the other liability lines, but we're gonna be a little cautious there. And we typically book those fairly conservatively, or at least at a higher booking ratio, so.
Okay. And then on the transportation book, I know you'd said, I think, in the past quarter too that it was pretty close to profitability. Is it -- rate increases continue at a pretty high rate. Has it achieved profitability yet, or what is your outlook for that?
I mean, right now, we believe it's making a small underwriting profit. I mean, we're hopeful -- I think our underwriters believe it's better than that. But like I said, we're gonna take a wait-and-see attitude. So, if our underwriters didn't think they were making money, they have zero incentive to grow it, and they wouldn't. So, I think we have pretty good checks and balances there, and I think we feel pretty good about where we're headed there. Certainly, the rate of 8%, we think that's ahead of loss cost trends there. So, regardless of where the starting point is, there should be some improvement in whatever margin we have there.
Once again, it is *1 to ask a question. We'll go next to Mark Dwelle with RBC Capital Markets.
Yeah, good morning. My esteemed colleagues have taken several pounds at this, but I'm gonna ask a couple more on commercial casualty. Can you just clarify, the loss ratio in the quarter, was there anything in the quarter that was sort of maybe a top-up of prior quarter loss picks or of prior quarter reserving, or is it all confined to the loss picks you're taking just through this quarter?
Mark, this is Craig. Again, there's no -- there's been no material change to any of the loss ratios over the quarter, even, I don't even think, for the whole year. There's been some mix changes, obviously, because -- the products people grow or they see the opportunities, and those vary quarter to quarter and account by account, so. But we have not made any substantial change to any of those ratios. So, a lot of that has to be explained by mix.
Okay. I appreciate that. And then, second question, related to the reserve releases in the quarter, obviously they were favorable for all the lines on an aggregate basis. But were there any meaningful reserve additions embedded within any of those net releases?
Yeah, Mark, it's Tom Brown. Every quarter, every year, we're gonna have some ups and some downs, but nothing of a meaningful nature that was unfavorable.
Okay, thanks. Then, I guess, two other questions that are kind of catastrophe-ish related. First, I guess, on Florence. How did the losses that you experienced there, compare to maybe what you would have expected for a loss of that magnitude or nature? Were you a little better or a little worse? I thought like it was a little better, but certainly interested in your view.
Well, Mark, I mean, storm by storm changes a lot there, each one is unique. I mean, we kind of viewed that one as more of a rain and water event. But the construction in North Carolina and South Carolina, as we knew, was not nearly the same construction as you get in Florida. So, you had some roofs peel back, and then the water get in, and you had some water damage to the properties. But the losses overall, I think they were where we thought and about of the size that we would expect, given the size of that storm and how long it stalled out over the area, so.
All right. Okay. And then, obviously, it's early on on Michael. But I guess I would be interested in your impression. We've seen a range of industry losses put out, from $4 billion to $10 billion. Do you have any sense sort of across that sort of range, whether it's a little on the lower end or a little on the higher end, at least from your perspective?
Mark, it's very difficult for us to estimate an industry event. We're such a small player relative to the whole industry. So, I would hesitate to guess. I mean, we have had over 35 claims come in so far, but they are where we would expect. There's not really been any surprises. I mean, it was a very strong storm. I think some people view that as a remote area, but I think that on the west side of the storm, there was probably more damage than you would typically think, because that's supposed to be the weaker side of the storm. But that's where Panama City and Panama City Beach are, and there's a lot of resorts and hotels, condos, and things like that there. So, I think there's certainly some damage there.
Among the claims you've seen so far, are most of them primarily in coastal-ish areas, or are you getting much in the way of claims further inland up in Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia?
I get it. I'm just trying to get a sense of kind of what you've seen so far. I appreciate it. It would be too early for anybody to know.
Most of them coastal in the Panama City and Panama City Beach area so far. I mean, Mexico City Beach was not a particularly large town, so. Commercially.
I appreciate the color. Thanks very much.
And if there are no further questions, I'll now turn the conference back to Mr. Jonathan Michael.
Thank you again for joining us. Good quarter, 8.5% growth in the top line, combined ratio of 96, which included the effect of Florence. Florence and Michael are reminders of what we're in this business for, and demonstrate the value of the insurance industry and getting businesses back in business and homeowners back in their homes. We're proud of the part that we play in that -- supporting that effort for sure. We've got people on the ground there in both areas adjusting claims and getting people back in business and back in their homes.
So, thank you, and we'll talk to you again next quarter.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to access the replay for this call, you may do so by dialing 1-888-203-1112, with an ID number of 9217140. This concludes our conference for today. Thank you all for participating, and have a nice day. All parties may now disconnect.
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Diurnal variation of heart rate, locomotor activity, and body temperature in interleukin-1 alpha/beta doubly deficient mice. This study was investigated the roles of interleukin-1 (IL-1) on diurnal rhythms of heart rate (HR), locomotor activity (LA), and body temperature (BT). For this purpose, HR, LA, and BT were recorded from conscious and unrestrained IL-1 alpha/beta doubly deficient (KO) and normal C57BL/6J mice using a telemetry system. These parameters were continuously recorded from just after to 2 weeks after transmitter implantation, because we thought that the surgical stress-induced IL-1 might affect the biobehavioral activities of the animals. At 1 day after implantation, HR and LA in IL-1 alpha/beta KO mice were higher than those in C57BL/6J mice. While BT in IL-1 alpha/beta KO mice was lower than that in C57BL/6J mice. Moreover, diurnal rhythmicity in these parameters after implantation in IL-1 alpha/beta KO mice appeared earlier than in C57BL/6J mice. At 2 weeks after implantation, there were no significant differences in the light- and dark-phase values of each parameter between IL-1 alpha/beta KO and C57BL/6J mice, however, IL-1 alpha/beta KO mice showed clear ultradian rhythmicity. It is thought that a phenotypical difference in biobehavioral activities between IL-1 alpha/beta KO and C57BL/6J mice may reflect IL-1 induced febrile and behavioral responses. These results suggest that IL-1 may play important physiological and pathophysiological roles on biobehavioral activities. |
Exercise-induced oxidative stress and melatonin supplementation: current evidence Melatonin possesses the indoleamine structure and exerts antioxidant and anti-inflammatory actions and other physiological properties. Physical exercise can influence secretion of melatonin. Melatonin is used as a natural supplement among athletes to regulate sleep cycles and protect muscles against oxidative damage. Despite decades of research, there is still a lack of a comprehensive and critical review on melatonin supplementation and physical activity relationship. The aim of this literature review is to examine the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and other biological functions played by melatonin with reference to the effect of physical exercise on melatonin secretion and the effect of this compound supplementation on exercise-induced oxidative stress in athletes. Evidence shows that intense exercises disturb antioxidant status of competitive athletes, whereas supplementation with melatonin strengthens antioxidant status in trained athletes in various sports as the compound showed high potency in reduction of the oxidative stress and inflammation markers generated during intense and prolonged exercise. Background Melatonin (MT) N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine is an endogenous indoleamine which controls crucial physiological processes such as human circadian rhythms sleep-wake cycle, anxiety, immune, and cardiac function. MT influences appetite and regulates insulin levels among other functions. The compound and its metabolites are potent antioxidants which exhibit antiinflammatory properties and protect mitochondria from damage by scavenging reactive oxygen species (ROS), and reactive nitrogen species (RNS). MT and its derivatives stimulate several antioxidant enzymes activity. Thus, MT plays an important role in maintenance of cellular redox homeostasis and in the aging processes. Increase in free radicals' level and oxygen non-radical species production, followed by their accumulation in cells, may lead to a disturbance in cellular redox balance; a phenomenon called oxidative stress (OS). This state is characterized by an imbalance between pro-oxidants generation and antioxidant system's defense against ROS/ RNS and efficiency of the DNA repair system. Intense physical activity (PA), similarly as other unhealthy lifestyle factors such as smoking, alcohol, improper diet, or environmental factors (e.g., radiation, viruses, and bacteria), disturbs the redox homeostasis toward oxidation. Intense and prolonged exercise induces inflammation, due to high generation of free radicals and ROS/RNS and possible oxidative muscle damage. In contrast, regular moderate-to-vigorous exercise generates moderate concentration of ROS/RNS, followed by adaptative responses favorable for the organism and exert beneficial effects on onset and progression of a number ROS/RNS-associated diseases. The In a previous article, we presented the enhancing effect of PE on catecholamines (CATs) secretion and on cellular redox homeostasis. Evidence has shown that one of the CATs, noradrenaline (NA), is involved in the control of MT synthesis. Due to antioxidant properties MT and its metabolites, and the compound prescription in sleep disturbances of children and adolescents in neuropsychiatric disorders and common ingestion by athletes, presenting the current state of knowledge on association between MT and PE is warranted. The potential of MT as an antioxidant to supplement against negative effects of exhaustive and/or high intense PE or to improve athlete's performance is necessary. Despite increasing research in this field, there is a lack of a comprehensive critical summary of the research on impact of MT supplementation to prevent against the PE-induced OS. Therefore, this article presents a representative cross-section of evidence in this area. The aim of this paper is to present the effect of PE on MT secretion and to demonstrate the current evidence on the beneficial role of the indolamine supplementation against OS generated in the human body by strenuous exercise. This review also focuses on mechanisms and determinants of exercise-induced OS and summarizes the literature data on biological functions performed by MT, especially with regard to antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. Chemical structure and biological activities of melatonin and its metabolites MT, a multifunctional and the most effective antioxidant among natural antioxidants, is endogenously produced in plants and mammals as well as supplied to the body through fruits and vegetables. The compound is synthetized from tryptophan, mainly in the pineal gland in the brain (about 80%) in darkness. Also, other sources of MT in mammals are recognized: bone marrow cells, retina, skin, platelets, lymphocyte, and the gastrointestinal tract. Four enzymatic steps of MT biosynthesis have been detailed: hydroxylation, decarboxylation, acetylation, and methylation. In the first step, tryptophan is metabolized by tryptophan hydroxylase 1 to 5-hydroxytryptophan. Next, the intermediate is converted by the enzyme 5-hydroxytryptophan-decarboxylase to 5-hydroxytryptamine (serotonin). Further, serotonin in mammals is metabolized to N-acetyl-5-hydroxytryptamine by serotonin N-acetyltransferase and methylated by the enzyme N-acetylserotonin O-methyltransferase to MT. It is important to note that the intermediate compound in the MT biosynthesis-serotonin is a key neurotransmitter having a wide spectrum of functions in the human body. For example, serotonin plays an essential role in behavior and regulation of central nervous system. MT modulates several functions, such as anxiety, psychological stress, learning, sleep, mood, pain, appetite, and exhibits antioxidant and antidepressant properties, among others. MT is carried by the systemic circulation to central and peripheral tissues (e.g., liver, pancreas, lung, kidney, heart, and the fetal adrenal gland) where functions are organized through a 24-h cycle (so-called circadian rhythms). Moreover, the neurohormone receptors are present in several central and peripheral tissues, e.g., heart and coronary blood vessels, adrenal gland, lung, kidney, prostate, skin, T and B lymphocytes, and adipocytes. Chemical structure of melatonin and its metabolites Melatonin contains an electron-rich aromatic indole heterocycle with methoxy group attached to C5 atom and amide group attached to C3 atom from indole ring (Fig. 1). The presence of an indole ring allows MT to function as an electron donor, thus, to reduce level of electrophilic species in cells. The site chains enable MT to exhibit both hydrophilic and lipophilic properties and diffuse across the cell membranes, thus, to protect biomolecules, such as cytosol, mitochondria, and nucleus against oxidation. In addition, the methoxy and amide groups enhance free radicals' scavenging ability of the electronrich indole moiety, and the electronic structure of indole ensures high resonance stability and its reactivity toward ROS. Evidence showed that C-atoms in the indole ring structure are appropriate sites for hydroxyl radical (HO ⋅ ) and nitric oxide radical (NO ⋅ ) acceptation due to low energetic barrier, followed by adducts formation. Evidence simultaneously has suggested several mechanisms responsible for the MT interaction with free radicals as follows: (a) an electron transfer reaction; this interaction leads to the MT cation formation which exhibits long lifetime and may react with O − 2 ; (b) hydrogen atom donation, this capacity has been ascribed to the NH group; (c) radical addition reaction, this process is highly efficient with powerful electron acceptors efficacy; in this way MT may deactivate two HO radicals; (d) substitution reaction, this process occurs on carbon atoms, the C-atoms at position 2, 3 or 7 of the indole ring are easily substituted by HO ⋅ ; (e) nitrosation reaction, in this process N-nitrosomelatonin is generated as a result of the neurohormone reactivity towards NO. Several distinctive activities of MT have been reported due to its chemical structure. Briefly, evidence showed enhancing DNA repair by affecting genes participated in DNA damage. These properties enable MT to scavenge peroxyl radical (ROO ⋅ ), singlet oxygen ( 1 O 2 ) and peroxynitrite (ONOO), and to inhibit the activity of NO synthase and hypochlorous acid (HClO), among other toxic radicals and species. The basic property that distinguishes MT from other commonly applied antioxidants is its ability to scavenge up to ten of ROS/RNS, thus MT is much more potent antioxidant than the classic antioxidants, e.g., GSH or vitamins C and E which scavenger at most one radical. Another distinctive property is transformation of MT on oxidative and enzymatic pathways to several metabolites, which are widely recognized as good free radical scavengers. The main metabolites of MT generated during its reaction with ROS/RNS and/or on the enzymatic pathway, possessing antioxidative properties, include 3-OHMT, 6-OHMT, AMK, and AFMK as are shown in Fig. 1. The MT metabolites containing hydroxyl group in their chemical structure exhibit lower potency in the scavenging ability than MT and AFMK and AMK metabolites. Free radical scavenging and anti-inflammatory abilities of melatonin The main mechanism describing oxygen-based free radical scavenging by MT occurs via electron donation. For example, donation of an electron to HO ⋅ leads to its deactivation accompanied by the MT transformation to almost non-toxic radical form (indolyl radical cation). Further reactions of indolyl radical cation with HO ⋅ leads to the formation of several hydroxylated products (e.g., 3-OHMT, 6-OHMT) also having antioxidant properties. Moreover, evidence shows that the AFMK and AMK metabolites ( Fig. 1) react with HO ⋅ in hydrophilic and lipophilic media at diffusion controlled-rates ranging from 1.2 to 7.5 10 10 M −1 s −1 and with trichloromethylperoxyl radical ( ⋅ OOCCl 3 ), although they do not show reactivity towards hydroperoxy radical (HOO ⋅ ). The reactivity of MT and its derivatives exhibit continuous protection of biomolecules against OS, reducing concentration of the most dangerous to cell radicals. The order of the relative scavenging activity on the whole is as follows: AFMK > MT > AMK, although it is dependent on the environment polarity. In turn, the hydroxylated metabolites of MT, such as 2-HOMT formed during MT reaction with HClO as well as 4-OHMT and 6-OHMT not only directly scavenge free radicals, but also through removing of transition metal ions in the redox state (e.g., Fe 2+, Cu + ) diminish concentration of HO ⋅. Another important antioxidant property of MT is decomposition of H 2 O 2 and the ability to quench 1 O 2. MT and its metabolites (3-OHMT, AFMK, and AMK) also protect against metal toxicity acting as antioxidant chelating agents on two manners: via direct chelation mechanism and deprotonation reaction linked with metal ion chelation. It was found that the above molecules completely inhibited OS induced by the Cu 2+ -ascorbate mixture, and metabolite 3-OHMT exhibited the highest efficiency. The chelation activity of MT originates from the chemical structure, i.e., presence of two oxygen and two nitrogen atoms acting as di-, tri-, and tetra-dentate ligands with transition metals. MT and its metabolites prevent against a free radical chain reaction of lipid peroxidation where MT and its metabolites act as inhibitors of free radicals initiating the lipid peroxidation, thus protect cells from the harmful effect of the peroxidation products containing a carbonyl group. Further, MT and its metabolites possess ability to reduce chronic and acute inflammation. Although inflammation is a natural response of the human immune system to initiate stress stimuli acute and/or chronic inflammation potentially leads to tissue damage of several organs and possibly to disease. An inflammatory process results from the loss of balance between proinflammatory cytokines and anti-inflammatory agents' levels towards activation of nuclear factor B (NF-B) signaling. The nuclear factor penetrates the nucleus and binds to specific components modulating transcription of proinflammatory genes. MT and its metabolites can exert their anti-inflammatory effect through inhibition of the transcription factors involved in proinflammatory cytokines generation, e.g., activator protein 1 (AP-1), hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1), nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor2 (Nrf2), NF-B, prostaglandin synthesis, reduction of production of adhesion molecules, infiltration of neutrophils in tissue, decrease of COX-2 and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression as well as by increasing superoxide dismutase (SOD), CAT, glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and T-helper immune response. These actions of MT reduce inflammation and decrease further ROS formation. For this reason, MT is the antioxidant of great interest for medicinal purposes as OS and chronic inflammation are associated with an increased risk of several cancers. Another noteworthy beneficial property of MT is its capacity to protect against cytotoxicity of heavy metals, such as lead, arsenic, chromium, cadmium, and aluminum, induced through activation of basic regulators of antioxidant inflammatory pathways: NF-B and Nrf2. Evidence demonstrates their opposing actions: Nrf2 regulates antioxidant pathway via promotion of the transcription of antioxidant enzymes and cytoprotective genes, while NF-B is the promotor of inflammatory pathways; both transcription factors are regulated by OS. MT induces dissociation of Nrf2 from Keap-1 (Kelch-like ECH-associated protein), which can translocate into the nucleus, where it upregulates and promotes the transcription of antioxidant genes. In addition, Nrf2 can also bind to NF-B target genes and suppress their transcription. The antioxidative, anti-inflammatory abilities of MT and its metabolites as well its high lipophilicity also predispose this compound to reduce the aging process, and age-related diseases, e.g., neurological Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, or Huntington's disease, among others. Anti-tumor effect of melatonin There is growing scientific evidence that both OS and psychological stress have been linked with alterations in the immune system responses. The disturbance manifests by a decrease in immune natural killer (NK) cells activity and their ability to respond to the proinflammatory cytokines. NK cells and tumor antigen cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) are important immune anticancer agents of which activity is enhanced by MT. Activation of CTLs by heat shock protein (HSP70), ATP and high mobility group box1 (HMGB1) leads to the secretion of anticancer cytokines, such as interferon gamma (IFN) and TNF-alpha which can induce apoptosis in cancer cells. The hormone also reduces an activity of T regulatory cells (Treg) and cancer-associated fibroblasts of the agents recognized as promoters of the growth and invasion of tumor cells. Cancer cells show over-proliferate ability through modulation of protein expression and the signal transduction pathways such as HIF-1, NF-Bs, phosphoinositide 3-kinase/protein kinase B (P13K/AKT), insulin-like growth factor receptor (IGF-1R), cyclin-dependent kinases and estrogen receptor signaling. MT possess the ability to selectively block the signaling pathways of tumor cells participating in metastasis by modulation of cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions and can restrain the proliferation of cancer cells and inhibit their growth. An important property of MT is an ability of regulation of P13K/AKT intracellular signaling pathway which is involved in the promotion of metabolism, growth, proliferation, cells survival, and angiogenesis. The P13K/AKT pathway is overactive in many cancers reducing cells apoptosis. Although the precise molecular mechanisms that would allow MT to affect tumor initiation and progression are not fully understood, several other beneficial effects have been demonstrated, e.g., participation in maintaining the genomic integrity, due to its antioxidant and inflammation activities, inhibition of androgen and estrogen formation and activity and also their receptors, dysregulation of tumor metabolism. The latter activity of MT results from its capacity to switch glucose metabolism in cancer cells from the glycolytic anaerobic category in the cytosol to a normal oxidative phosphorylation for ATP synthesis in the mitochondria and coverts pyruvate to acetyl-coenzyme A. In this way, MT can decrease energy supply needed for ATP formation and limit a rapid cancer cells growth and proliferation. Evidence has demonstrated that in tumor cells glycolytic anaerobic metabolism definitely overweight the oxidative metabolism; pyruvate formed in cytosol during glucose metabolism is not transformed to the mitochondria but is metabolized to lactate in cytosol . The Warburg effect limits the efficient production of ATP and citrate, which could arrest glycolysis as in the normal cells, and, in addition, it prefers intracellular alkaline environment, enhances glycolysis and cells cycle progression, cancer cell growth, aggressiveness, resistance to apoptosis, and makes cancer therapy difficult. Evidence showed that the MT effect is concentration dependent as cancer cells showed the highest cytostatic glycolysis during the day and nighttime exposure to light. Findings have documented the oncostatic role of MT against several types of cancer (breast, prostate, oral, gastric, lung, brain, ovarian, colorectal, liver, renal). The compound has also been shown to be useful in cancer treatment during chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The benefit in the MT application in cancer therapy results from its different effects on tumor cells and the normal cells. The use of MT in chemotherapy allows to reduce the dose of applied drugs to destroy tumor cells through their increased sensitivity on drugs interaction which limits their resistance. In addition, MT decreases side effects of the cancer chemotherapy, increases rate of patients survival and improves overall well-being. Similarly, combination of MT with radiotherapy has also been found to restrict damage of the normal tissue related to radiation dose and achieve greater cancer inactivation; MT plays role of a radiosensitizer. Other physiological function of melatonin Evidence documents that the primary physiological function of MT is to delivery information about the diurnal cycle of light/darkness to the human body and synchronization of central and peripheral oscillators distributed in tissues and organs. The circadian clock system plays a key role in maintenance of homeostasis and human health. The circadian time keeping system is composed of a generator of circadian rhythms located in suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) of the hypothalamus which synchronizes the peripheral cellular clocks with daily periodic environmental changes. This MT action as a time indicator to the biological clocks allows humans rapidly adept themselves to environmental conditions and survive. This function is important as the circadian rhythm disturbance can increase the risk of metabolic, cardiovascular, and mental diseases, as well as cause poor quality of life. The circadian rhythm of the hormone synthesis and secretion is closely related to the rhythm of sleep. MT stabilizes circadian rhythms and exerts the chronobiotic effects acting on the plasma membrane trough G protein-dependent receptors type 1 and type 2 called MT1 and MT2, and its rhythmic release is regulated by a central circadian rhythm generator. Density of MT1 and MT2 receptors in the SCN is high, although the receptors are also distributed in peripheral tissues and organs (e.g., adipose tissue, liver, heart). The signals generated by SCN induce the MT synthesis in darkness, and the process is controlled by SCN via the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). Importantly, MT is effective in adjusting sleep-wake cycles and improving the quality of sleep and is commonly used as a medicine for the treatment of sleep problems, e.g., in insomnia, jet leg. With age, the production of MT decreases which may have an influence on poor sleep quality in elderly individuals and cause the prevalence of comorbid the mental and physical health disorders. The severity of sleep impairments correlate with the decrease of endogenous MT formation and its concentration in cerebrospinal fluid. It is important to note that several MT receptor agonists can also mimic MT activation, thus they are able to regulate the body sleep-wake rhythm through their actions on the MT receptors MT1 and MT2 in the SCN. Ramelteon, agomelatine and tasimelteon are representative MT receptor agonists used for sleep disorders. It is maintained that the MT receptor agonist connecting to the MT1 receptor subtype can directly improve sleep latency and quality, whereas the agonist action on the MT2 receptor subtype positively influences the circadian system, e.g., by promoting early sleep. Also, the use of the MT receptors to treat comorbid insomnia in several health disorders (neurological, metabolic, cardiovascular, psychiatric) is of great importance. The MT receptors agonists, similarly as MT, have an influence on several signaling pathways, exhibit free radical scavenging ability, stimulate the activity and/or expression of antioxidant enzymes, and suppress the proinflammatory cytokines release. For example, Wang et al. reported that ramelteon administration in C57BL/6 mice cells elevated traumatic brain injury, prevented against OS and inflammation. In this study, treating with the MT agonist significantly increased the expression of IL-4, IL-10, SOD, GSH, GSH peroxidase and decreased levels of IL-1, TNF- and MDA. The authors also observed that ramelteon decreased KEAP1 expression of a key sensor of oxidative and electrophilic stresses, promoted Nrf2 nuclear accumulation, and increased levels of heme oxygenase-1, that is Nrf2 regulated gene having antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effect in vascular cells. Ramelteon also controlled the redox controlling enzyme NQO1 (NAD(P)H: quinone oxidoreductase 1) activity. NQO1 plays significant role in quinone metabolism and exhibit the defense against OS. Further, the reduced expression of proinflammatory cytokines (IL-6, IL-1, TNF-), glial fibrillary acidic protein and protection against increased expressions of proinflammatory COX-2 and against a potent inflammatory mediator prostaglandin E 2 (PGE 2 ) as well as excessive NO ⋅ production were reported. In addition to well-established functions outlined above, MT has also been identified as an important promotor of a healthy metabolic rate through glucose homeostasis re-establishment and lipid metabolism regulation. These physiologic effects of the indolamine have drawn great attention in the recent years. Evidence shows MT can regulate glycogen breakdown to glucose, preserve glycogen stores, improve insulin resistance in the skeletal muscle and liver, and reduce obesity, protecting from several diseases caused by glycogen storage. These MT properties influence physical performance during PE of high intensity. Although evidence on the beneficial metabolic effects of MT is reported and findings showed that the hormone exhibits very low side effect, there is no full agreement in this respect (as reviewed by Garulet et al. ). Detailed discussion of the physiologic activities may be found in the reviews. Physical exercise and melatonin Proper sleep and recovery are essential to athletes' benefit as well as enhancing their physical performance from training programs. Evidence has accumulated showing that athletes commonly use sleep-enhancing supplements, and MT is one of the most used aid in this respect, due also to other positive effects on the body, e.g., as an antioxidant in protection of muscles against OS and enhancer of performance. Influence of physical exercise on cellular redox state The effect of PE on the cellular redox homeostasis has been widely studied since the 1970s, especially regarding exercise of moderate intensity (50-< 60% V O max 2 ) and exercise of vigorous/high intensity (≥ 60% V O max 2 ). Independent of exercise type and intensity, exercise ≥ 50% V O max 2 induces an increase of ROS/RNS concentration above physiological level, and their concentration is dependent on several factors (e.g., exercise determinants, postural position during exercise, state of training, age, gender, and diet). During exercise non-mitochondrial sources of ROS are the main contributor to overall amounts of generated species in the skeletal muscle, while during rest and recovery the mitochondrial source is decisive. There is significant evidence-based research carried out during the past four decades that regular exercise of moderate intensity is a key factor regulating the level of ROS/RNS in a cell protection against chronic cell exposure to these species if their level is low. ROS/ RNS are formed constantly in various tissues even at rest as a part of normal metabolic processes. They play role of secondary messengers in intracellular signaling, participate in gene expression, support cellular proliferation and relaxation of vascular smooth muscle cells, and regulate angiogenesis, among others. Primarily, PE increases mitochondrial metabolism and ROS/RNS production, followed by an increase in stress resistance and is responsible for variety of physiological adaptations (e.g., mitohormesis). Further, regular moderate-tovigorous PE regulates the energy expenditure, insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), and insulin-like growth factor binding proteins (IGFBPs) balance, defenses against inflammation, and enhances the immune system functioning. Exercise improves metabolism of all the human biological systems and cells as well as tissues tolerance to higher concentration of ROS generated during exercise training, enhancing activity of antioxidant enzymes in muscles and mitochondrial biogenesis. Besides the beneficial effect of PE on humans, evidence shows acute bouts of long-lasting and high-intensity endurance exercises can cause biochemical and hormonal disturbance, generate ROS/RNS at the rate exceeding the endogenous antioxidant system performance and disrupting redox homeostasis, i.e., induce OS in untrained subjects. In addition, diet poor in antioxidants enhances the stress. Under such type of exercises the maximal consumption of molecular oxygen in the muscle fibers may reach 100-fold increase compared with the rest state. Then, skeletal muscles produce large amounts of free radicals, ROS and RNS, including HO ⋅ and NO ⋅, and are considered as the major source of these toxic species. The increased production of the reactive species in muscles includes mainly mitochondrial nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidase, phospholipase A2, and reactions catalyzed by xanthine oxidase (XO), such as a breakdown of ATP accompanied by generation of adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and adenosine monophosphate (AMP) and further hypoxanthine via the adenylate kinase reaction. Evidence summarizes possible adverse effects of acute exercise and/or overtraining, such as DNA/ RNA and protein damage, increased lipid peroxidation, decreased natural killer (NK) cells function and T cell activities, increased angiogenesis, induction of protooncogenes, activation of transcription factors, alternation in the muscle genome, the immune system damage, and change of signal transduction. Acute reduction of the muscle action and their fatigue was described to high level of ROS produced during muscle contraction. The damaging effect of OS has been confirmed experimentally by identifying changed level of OS markers in blood and during muscle biopsies. These processes may lead to chronic inflammation and increase a risk of several civilization diseases, including cancer development, progression and metastasis (more detailed reviews on this topic are available, e.g., Ref. ). Evidence for the adverse oxidative modifications of muscular biomolecules were mainly reported after acute or chronic anaerobic exercise. Acute high-intensity PE can cause biochemical and hormonal disturbance, increase OS, being positively correlated with overexpression of proinflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin-1 (IL-1), interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-) and CRP. Further, large changes in immune system activity and lipid and carbohydrate metabolism following exhaustive exercise can promote acute muscle inflammation and tissue damage. Additionally, endurance athletes often experience poorer quality of sleep, due to high training load. Intense training also decreased athletes endogenous MT level. On the other hand, recent studies demonstrated that the redox signaling pathway participates in the chronic response of the skeletal muscle to endurance training. This muscle activity includes an uptake of glucose, influences on insulin sensitivity, mitochondrial biogenesis, and initiation of antioxidant enzymes. Effect of physical exercise on melatonin and serotonin secretion Melatonin secretion Synthesis and secretion of MT is stimulated in darkness and occur with circadian rhythm. Evidence has indicated that the hormone concentration increases between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. reaching a maximum value between 3.00 and 4.00 a.m. following by a decrease between 7:00 and 9:00 a.m. On average, the MT levels are estimated to be about 5 pg/mL during the day and 50-100 pg/mL at the night. Synthesis and release of MT are modified by several factors (genetic factors, sex hormones, age, diet, light exposure, season, hypoxia, PE, diseases, drugs). These factors may potentially act as enhancers of MT secretion or its inhibitors. Briefly, increases in the MT production and its secretion were reported for a diet containing MT or the compounds supporting its synthesis, e.g., tryptophan, vitamins, and minerals that act as activators or co-factors during the hormone synthesis. Further, extension of the dark phase during winter, regularly taking antidepressants and MAO inhibitors also increase the MT secretion. Conversely, the presence of light, especially the nocturnal exposure to artificial light of blue cyanin color, use of 1-adrenergic blockers and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, chronic alcohol consumption, and hypoxia have inhibitory effects. Additionally, MT release is decreased during aging and in patients with long-term chronic diseases, such as dementia, type 2 diabetes mellitus, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer. Accumulated evidence presents the effect of PE on human MT secretion as exercise induces an upregulation of many cell processes and physiological functions, including the circadian clocks network synchronization. Studies that tested the magnitude and direction of the circadian rhythm phase shift induced by PE showed that PE can both reduce and increase the MT concentrations, according to the rhythm phase shifting (advanced or delayed) or remain without effect. This interaction depends on the time of exercising during the day, the intensity of light, training level, and exercise determinants (intensity, duration, dose), regardless exercise type (aerobic, anaerobic, concentric, resistive) and gender. Two modes of the exercise effect on human MT release have been observed rapid and delayed, depending on its duration and daily repeatability. Exercising in the late evening during ascending phase of circadian MT release was accompanied by delaying the hormone secretion, or even inhibition, depending on exercise duration and intensity. In turn, when MT levels reached the maximal physiological value, even exercise of high intensity performed in early evening might enhance MT release. There is a suggestion that exercising near the offset of MT release or during the daytime (morning, afternoon) did not exert significant changes in plasma MT concentration. Further, among the circadian clock system external stressors, which can interact or cooperate with PE and modify neural activity and/or the circadian genes expression and change the clock time are: light, psychological stress, food, and PE. For this reason, it is difficult to control all factors affecting the MT release, and the data from literature are not yet consolidated. The major stimuli responsible for the stressors influence on the circadian clocks include glucocorticoids, sympathetic nerves, OS, pH changes, decreased oxygen levels in the local tissues, changed cytokines level, and temperature. Evidence has shown ROS activate the redox signal transduction in the SCN and exhibit day-night variation controlling neuronal membrane excitability. Physical exercise alters sympathetic neural activity and increases MT release caused by increased noradrenaline secretion during the sympathetic system stimulation. Table 1 presents the representative data for the MT secretion following PE. The studies varied in many respects, as exercise duration (short time-from 1 to 8 days, long-lasting-from 2 to 12 months), exercise type, exercise intensity (moderate, moderate-to-vigorous, acute until exhaustion), training conditions (hypoxic, normoxic conditions, indoor training, outdoor training), sex, and measuring the timing of maximal secretion of MT as well as the measurement methods. An increase of MT concentration following PE in the morning and in hypoxic conditions, decreases in the same, and a lack of the effect were reported. Referring to the MT measurement timing, Carlson et al. observed that exercise performed in the morning resulted in elevated MT secretion by 20% compared to the hormone secretion induced by the afternoon exercise. The representative studies listed in Table 1 have some limitations, which have influenced their results. These limitations include the lack of control for the major factors influencing MT secretion, the small number of measurement time points for MT detection or the small sample size. These findings remain in accordance with previous findings because there is no clear consensus in the literature on the effect of PE on endogenous profile of MT secretion. It is noteworthy to present the quantitative impact of some factors influencing the PE-MT release association. For example, earlier experimental studies of Buxton et al. reported both increases and decreases of MT levels following exercise depending on time of day and on intensity, duration, and type of exercise. The authors found that during exercise in nighttime, when the MT level is elevated and intensity of exercise is high, the hormone increase may reach 50%. Moreover, the MT secretion was found to be dependent on individual's postural changes. These researchers maintained that moderate and high intensity exercise may influence MT levels and involve the circadian clock phase-shifting effects. Also, a study by Carr et al. confirmed that plasma level of MT was transiently increased in women during all acute submaximal exercise tests of progressive endurance training after 30-min exercise completion. A previous study by Theron et al. showed that additional factors, such as BMI, lighting conditions, the time of day of exercising, and age may influence the relationship between plasma MT concentration and PE. The authors demonstrated increased plasma MT level in adult Black males who in the step-climbing exercise generated an energy output of 185 W/m 2 body surface area, immediately after PE and 1 h after. Evidence indicated a threefold increased MT mean level in group exercising under 320 lx lighting (n = 15) and a 2.84-fold under 54 lx lighting (n = 15). Evidence exists that the season of year (winter, summer) also affects the PE-MT association, and changes of MT concentration after exercise vs before exercise may depend on the initial level of individual's endogenous MT concentration. An interesting observation done by Serrano and co-workers showed professional road cyclists experienced of an adaptation to physical overloads during sports competitions. It is maintained that this ability allows them to regulate intracellular OS, limiting an induction of the proinflammatory cytokines. Moreover, elevated levels of MT detected after competition, resulting from increased activity of SNS can give evidence that the protective effect of exercise operates via modulatory effect on MT secretion. Although processes responsible for the PE effect on MT secretion are not fully understood, several mechanisms are proposed. As maintained above, one of the biogenic catecholamines-noradrenaline participates in regulation of MT biosynthesis by the mammalian pineal gland. Evidence presented high increases of noradrenaline level (2 10 3 %) in professional cyclists and even sevenfold increase after half-marathon runs. Exercise stimulates SNS activity and catecholamines (dopamine, noradrenaline) release, thus it can modulate MT secretion, followed by a net phase-shifting through the pineal gland and SCN of the hypothalamus, which causes an expression of receptors for MT. Further, PE stimulates the midbrain raphe nuclei activating serotoninergic input to the intergeniculate leaflets, which take part in the circadian function regulation through SCN. It is suggested that an initiation of activity of the serotoninergic neurons from the median raphe nuclei is excited by serotonin and depends on its concentration in SCN, thus serotonin, a compound linked with well-being regulates the mammalian circadian rhythmicity. Serotonin response to exercise The body of evidence from animal models and human studies demonstrated the beneficial effect of exercise on brain functions. Regulations of the neurotransmitters is one of several exercise's effect on brain function, among others. Evidence exist that PE modulates serotonin system and can promote increased concentrations of serotonin, as muscle activation needs higher amounts of tryptophan. The authors have suggested that exercise reduces levels of amino acids competing with tryptophan through muscle intake and make these amino acids easier to cross the bloodbrain barrier into muscles. In this way, serotonin and MT synthesis and their levels are increased in the brain dependently on exercise intensity. The ability of PE to modulate the activity of catecholaminergic and serotonergic systems and to enhance the brain function show that exercise as a positive activating agent of body' stress response. Additionally, aerobic exercise has a high ability to decrease depression and anxiety levels and to improve physical performance. Several recent reviews have summarized experimental findings on the serotonin response to PE. Most serotonin changes following exercise have been well documented in rodents, but only a limited number of human studies have been conducted. A review of 22 studies in rats by Meeusen and De Meirleir presented that the majority of analyzed studies found changes in synthesis and metabolism of serotonin or its metabolites and CATs in response to exercise. Another review by Basso and Suzuki has analyzed research findings on the effect of exercise intensity and dose on serum serotonin in humans and rodents. The authors have suggested that acute long-term exercise increased serotonin levels and its metabolites in the frontal cortex, hippocampus, striatum, and midbrain as well as dopamine in rodents. These reviews have maintained that the serotonin increase in the central nervous system of rodents requires appropriate intensity of exercise, and the amount of serotonin released is positively correlated with PE intensity. Further, the findings of studies conducted in humans show that individuals engaged in acute exercise of low intensity may benefit from significant decreases in depression and anxiety disorders in contrast to highintensity acute exercise, which is considered to contribute to fatigue. In this regard, it is maintained that a value of exercise-induced ratio of serotonin to dopamine and noradrenaline plays a significant role in the development of fatigue and performance. The authors suggested that interaction between brain serotonin and dopamine during acute PE can be responsible for the brain region specific changes in levels of serotonin. Statistically significant increases in blood serotonin levels dependent on PE have also been reported in a few experimental studies in humans and rodents in the last decade. A study by Valim et al. showed that women with fibromyalgia (n = 22) randomly divided into two groups aerobic walking exercise and stretching exercise three times/week for 20 weeks experienced statistically significant increase of serum serotonin concentration in response to aerobic exercise. Stretching exercise resulted in statistically insignificant increase of serotonin level. Also, a study by Arazi et al. noticed aerobic exercise significantly increased levels of serotonin and dopamine in the physically active group of 16 men addicted to opium in comparison to those who do not exercise (n = 18). The active group was engaged in aerobic exercise-walking 2-3 times/week for 20-30 min. The results show that even low-intensity aerobic exercise can affect the levels of these neurotransmitters. Recently these findings have been confirmed by Matsunaga et al. in rats (n = 48). The researchers studied the effect of intensity and timing of forced exercise (running on a motorized wheel), voluntary exercise (free running on a wheel) and low-dose exercise (voluntary, running exercise limited to 1 h), through 4 weeks on levels of serotonin. They found that response of serotonin to exercise was exercise dose-dependent; significantly increased levels of serotonin and its metabolite (5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid) were seen in the dorsal and median raphe nuclei in rats engaged in forced exercise. Also, increased concentrations of the neurotransmitter were found in the paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus and caudate putamen in voluntary exercised rats. Low-dose exercise was without effect on serotonin levels, and the heavy exercised rats experienced increased anxiety-like behavior. Role of melatonin supplementation in response to exercise-induced oxidative stress Exogenous compounds exhibiting antiradical and antioxidant potency play a key role in regulation of ROS/ RNS concentrations. Under OS conditions, endogenous concentration of MT are unable to prevent damages to biomolecules by ROS. Evidence shows supplementation with appropriate antioxidants may improve the cellular redox homeostasis, decrease oxidative modification of DNA bases, lipids, and proteins, and decrease muscular fatigue of athletes, thus enhance exercise performance. It is known that antioxidant supplementation is common practice among endurance athletes who hope to minimize OS and enhance physical performance, and MT is a universal antioxidant that enjoys great popularity among athletes. Table 2 lists the representative studies (n = 11) for the effect of MT ingestion on exercise-generated OS and inflammation. These observational studies differ from one another mainly in terms of MT timing: taking MT before exercise or before bedtime and its dose, exercise type, intensity, duration and timing, and training level. The most common types of sport training in these studies are cycle ergometer, treadmill exercise or running, in which individuals mainly engaged in maximal or submaximal exercise. The authors performed measurements of OS the markers (leukocytosis, MDA, 8-OHdG, TNF-, IL-6, LDL, AOPP), inflammatory markers (CRP, ALAT, ASAD), TAS as well as of other endogenous antioxidants, using mainly the blood sapless. The data indicate MT intake reduced the markers of OS and inflammation in athletes engaging in severe high-intensity exercise, independently of timing of MT intake. Only three of 11 presented experimental studies examined the MT influence on redox status followed moderate-intensity exercise. These authors found no effect of the hormone (5-6 mg doses) on biochemical and hematological parameters. This finding is in line with the evidence that at least strenuous exercise and/or overload training cause excessive production of ROS/RNS and an increase of OS. As presented above, in addition to antiradical, antioxidant activities and enhancing antioxidant enzymes potency, the hormone can change glucose metabolism from glycolytic anaerobic category to a normal aerobic mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation for ATP synthesis. An ingestion of MT before exercise increases use of glucose as a substrate energy. During prolonged exercise, glucose and fatty acids are utilized followed by a reduction of glycogen in muscle and liver. Evidence has shown that MT intake before PE preserves muscle glycogen stores of the compound which limits exercise performance. Three of 11 presented studies also examined effects of MT supplementation on exercise performance, finding its improvement in the two reported studies. In turn, a study by Souissi et al. tested the effect of MT supplementation on inflammation induced by exercise at 60% V O max 2, i.e., the lowest value of the maximum rate of O 2 consumption for exercise classified as high intensity. The authors found increased levels of inflammatory markers in both the MT-supplemented group and the placebo group and no statistically significant differences between these groups. A few studies presented in Table 2 examined also endogenous MT level in athletics after high-intensity training, observing significantly increased concentrations of inflammatory markers (TNF-, IL-6, IL-1Ra), isoprostane and 8-OHdG, malonaldehyde (MDA) or decreased blood levels of MT, compared with control groups. Explaining the inconsistency of the results may originate from different training status of sportsmen, training protocols, and variability of their redox state dependently on endogenous antioxidants secretion. It is worth noting that some studies on the effect of strenuous exercise on cellular homeostasis observed changes only in some OS markers, and even their lack. Consistent with this finding, the current review by Powers et al. has presented a shape of a curve illustrating the association between muscle fiber levels of ROS production induced by PE and physiological function of these species. The curve exhibits biphasic bell shape (hormesis, parabolic shape), with maximum of physiological benefit corresponding to limited muscle fatigue and exercise of moderate-to-vigorous intensity. This part of hormesis describes the normal physiological range of ROS, generated in the skeletal muscles by exercise and is considered as an important action to adapt of individuals to endurance training. In turn, the second phase of an association, described by the descending part of hormesis curve, starts from the curve maximum, and ends in the point corresponding zero of physiological functions, despite a further increase in exerciseinduced ROS generation. This part of hormesis suggests that further increase in ROS level caused by prolonged high-intensity exercise does not result in tissue damage, assuming that it is probably that PE exerts a true hormetic effect on the body. In addition to MT supplementation, the level of endogenous MT was seen to be dependent on daytime performing PE and its dose. Although supplementation with MT showed high potency in reduction of OS markers formed during intense exercise, the evidence is insufficient to recommend specific dose of this antioxidant. These observations are in accordance with findings of other authors discussed earlier and below. Briefly, there is clear consensus in the literature that noradrenaline is involved in biosynthesis of MT and can determine its concentration. Increased secretion of the catecholamine in plasma was observed above lactate threshold (on average of 50-80% of athletes' V O max 2 ) and was dependent not only on the level of training and duration, but also on an individual's psychological stress, health state and muscular mass engaged in training. An experimental study by Kim and Kim, included 8-week-old rats that were subjected to high-intensity (n = 30) and low-intensity (n = 30) exercises for 15 min daily over 4 weeks, demonstrated greater increase in blood MT concentration in rats exercising with highintensity exercise, compared to MT levels before and after high-and low-intensity exercise. The authors have maintained that MT secretion can be raised by exercise of high intensity, while exercise of low intensity can exert pro-oxidative effect resulting in decreased MT level due to the hormone interaction with stressors. This may explain, at least partially, the differences in findings reported in Table 2. In turn, a review by Lpez-Flores et al., of the research published in 2000-2018 (18 articles) on the effect of MT intake on sport performance underlined an important role not only a MT dose, but also daytime the supplement intake corresponding to the circadian clock system. The researchers found that ingestion of MT up to 1 h before PE did not improve athletic performance. The authors maintain that a dose of 10 mg of MT consumed 30 min before sleep may increase the sport performance briefly. It was also suggested that supplementation with higher concentrations of this antioxidant at the time of sport training may show adverse effects, e.g., sleep deprivation and the SNS suppression. There is increasing scientific evidence, mainly based on use of vitamins C and E, lipoic acid, and coenzyme Q, showing that antioxidant supplementation at high doses may be unfavorable for sport training adaptation because exogenous antioxidants can impair ROS/RNS level in skeletal muscle during sport training. A previous experimental study in vitro indeed showed that MT at high concentration may also exert prooxidant activity. The authors observed an increase of the amount of HO ⋅, O − 2 and 1 O 2 generated in the Fenton-like reaction in the presence of high concentrations of MT. Further, animal's study by Hong and colleagues reported that MT treatment with nanomolar doses of rats with the advanced knee osteoarthritis for 4 weeks alone or combined with moderate treadmill exercise (30 min/ day) prevented periarticular muscle damage and cartilage degeneration. The authors maintain that these beneficial effects occurred through the circadian clock system, due to restoring of clock-controlled genes and correction of the abnormal chondrocyte phenotype. They observed higher reduction of serum TNF- when MT intake was combined with exercise. However, prolonged MT administration to rats resulted in promotion of the proteolytic cleavage of receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa-B ligand (RANKL) protein in the synovium, followed by severe subchondral bone erosion. In turn, an animal study by Gedikli and co-workers included MT injection (10 mg/kg) to Sprague-Dawley rats and studied exposition to intense exercise. The authors found cellular degenerations of kidney and liver tissues in rats engaged in exercise and a decrease in these damages in MT-treated rats. Evidence from rodents' studies documents the important regulatory and modulatory effects, supporting action of MT supplementation on animals' tissues, and skeletal muscle exposed to OS stimuli, but these findings have not yet been explored in humans. These findings show that high-dose antioxidant supplements including MT may be linked to health risk. Another important and often discussed problem in this research area concerns adaptation to OS in sport training. There is no clear consensus in the literature that intake of antioxidants enhances adaptation to resistance exercise training. To explain the research findings incompatibility, Merry and Ristow have suggested the possibility of a dose-response association between ROS/ RNS levels and exercise-training adaptation and physical performance as a hormetic response, i.e., a low dose (physiological amounts) of OS stimuli such as ROS/RNS exerts beneficial adaptive response of cells, whereas large doses of the stressors exposition, by contrast, exhibit an opposite effect (inhibition), i.e., a decrease of exercise performance. Both PE and MT can exert the beneficial effect through modulation and activation of stress resistance pathways, among others. The dose-response dependence finds confirmation that both MT and physical endurance training induce antioxidant enzymes activities through increased mitochondrial content concentrations, and the Keap-1-Nrf2-ARE pathway and NF-B signal transduction as a response to OS and electrophilic stress. Conclusions This overview clearly summarizes the dispersed literature findings on MT biosynthesis, its chemical and biological properties, discusses exercise-related redox signaling and intense exercise-induced disturbances in redox homeostasis, provides the current knowledge on the effect of exercise on MT release and the effect of MT supplementation on endurance exercise-induced OS in athletes. The available literature findings confirm an important role of MT and its metabolites as a free radical and ROS/RNS scavengers, protectors of DNA damage, and reducers of the cellular and tissue oxidative damage. Current evidence highlights a wide spectrum of MT antiinflammatory and antitumor actions, OS reduction, and physiological effects on humans, such as circadian clock network regulation, glucose and lipid homeostasis regulation, and effect on physical performance. Also, utility of MT and its agonists for insomnia treatment has been demonstrated. Strong evidence suggests mitochondria are the central organelles for antioxidant actions of MT. Physical exercise alters SNS activity and MT secretion. The current evidence for the exercise dose-MT response relationship showed conflicting findings, similar to previous findings, indicating the effect of PE on the exogenous MT level in cells is extremely complex due to several factors increasing or decreasing its secretion as well as on dependencies on many factors describing exercise, an individual's redox state, training status, environmental conditions, MT intake timing, body mass, among others. PE increases concentration of ROS/RNS followed by activation of protein kinases, transcription factors and gene transcription, exerting beneficial adaptation or negative effects on the human body, depending on dose and exposition time of cells to this exercise. Strong experimental evidence is available for the positive effect of MT supplementation on lowering the proinflammatory cytokines, lipid peroxides, C-reactive protein, and ROS/RNS of which level could be strongly elevated in athletes engaged in prolonged endurance exercise, independently on MT supplementation timing. This compound has a potency to increase level of antioxidant enzymes and the GSH/ GSSG ratio, thus to maintain the cellular redox homeostasis in athletes engaged in acute, high-intensity sports training. Following this, epidemiological studies have found utility of MT intake to be daytime-, dose-, and exercise-dependent. The associations between PE, OS, and MT supplementation are very complex; physiological level of ROS/RNS and PE of moderate intensity are necessary to stimulate improvement of endogenous antioxidant system action. Despite a large knowledge base on the beneficial properties of MT, the exact mechanism underlying its effect on exercise-induced disturbance in redox homeostasis are not yet fully understood. Also, the current research is not sufficient to indicate recommendations concerning effective but safe dose of MT intake by sportsmen. Clinical studies are needed to establish optimal MT dose, time of day and duration its supplementation to avoid adversely affecting levels of ROS/RNS signaling and consequently of the negative effect on exercise-training organism adaptation. As the reported studies, overall, included large variations of exercise program protocols and a small sample of athletes, analyzed different markers of OS, were based on a limited extent factors increasing/decreasing the hormone release, were different in terms of MT and exercise timing and applied different MT doses, future research is needed. New research should include larger samples of athletes and address safe dose of MT intake and safe exercise training programs for different sport categories. In this sense, we hope that findings demonstrated in this review will encourage the continuation of research in this important health topic. The summarized and synthesized data of existing knowledge may help coaching staff to incorporate safe sport-specific training program, MT dose and timing. They may also be useful to research clinicians regarding the use of anti-inflammatory properties of this compound in the treatment of inflammatory diseases, including COVID-19. |
Drug-cured experimental Trypanosoma cruzi infections confer long-lasting and cross-strain protection Background The long term and complex nature of Chagas disease in humans has restricted studies on vaccine feasibility. Animal models also have limitations due to technical difficulties in monitoring the extremely low parasite burden that is characteristic of chronic stage infections. Advances in imaging technology offer alternative approaches that circumvent these problems. Here, we describe the use of highly sensitive whole body in vivo imaging to assess the efficacy of recombinant viral vector vaccines and benznidazole-cured infections to protect mice from challenge with Trypanosoma cruzi. Methodology/Principal findings Mice were infected with T. cruzi strains modified to express a red-shifted luciferase reporter. Using bioluminescence imaging, we assessed the degree of immunity to re-infection conferred after benznidazole-cure. Those infected for 14 days or more, prior to the onset of benznidazole treatment, were highly protected from challenge with both homologous and heterologous strains. There was a >99% reduction in parasite burden, with parasites frequently undetectable after homologous challenge. This level of protection was considerably greater than that achieved with recombinant vaccines. It was also independent of the route of infection or size of the challenge inoculum, and was long-lasting, with no significant diminution in immunity after almost a year. When the primary infection was benznidazole-treated after 4 days (before completion of the first cycle of intracellular infection), the degree of protection was much reduced, an outcome associated with a minimal T. cruzi-specific IFN-+ T cell response. Conclusions/Significance Our findings suggest that a protective Chagas disease vaccine must have the ability to eliminate parasites before they reach organs/tissues, such as the GI tract, where once established, they become largely refractory to the induced immune response. Introduction Chagas disease is caused by the insect-transmitted protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi and is the most important parasitic infection in the Americas. More than 5 million people are infected with this obligate intracellular parasite, resulting in a financial burden estimated at $7 billion annually. In humans, the disease is characterised by an acute stage that occurs 2-8 weeks post-infection, during which bloodstream parasites are often detectable. Symptoms during this period are normally mild, although lethal outcomes can occur in 5% of diagnosed cases. The parasite numbers are then controlled by a vigorous adaptive immune response. However, sterile immunity is not achieved and infected individuals transition to a chronic stage, which in most cases, appears to be life-long. Around 30-40% of those infected eventually develop chronic disease pathology, a process that can take decades to become symptomatic. Cardiomyopathy is the most common clinical manifestation, although 10-15% of people can develop digestive tract megasyndromes, sometimes in addition to cardiac disease. Attempts to control Chagas disease have been challenging. For example, although public health measures have been successful in reducing disease transmission in several regions of South America, there is a vast zoonotic reservoir that complicates disease eradication by this route. The only drugs currently available to treat the infection, the nitroheterocycles benznidazole and nifurtimox, have limited efficacy and cause toxic side effects that can impact on patient compliance. There have been no new treatments for almost 50 years, but progress in discovering new chemotherapeutic agents is now being accelerated by a range of drug development consortia encompassing both the academic and commercial sectors. For many years, vaccine development against Chagas disease has been inhibited by concerns that autoimmunity could play a role in disease pathogenesis. Although not excluded as a contributory factor, the current consensus is that the risk has been overstated, and that the continued presence of the parasite is required to drive disease pathology. The host response to T. cruzi infection involves a complex combination of both innate and adaptive immune mechanisms. The innate system is key to controlling parasite proliferation and dissemination during the initial stages of infection, with important roles for both Toll-like receptor (TLR)-mediated inflammatory responses and TLR-independent processes. As the acute phase progresses, the development of an antigen-specific immune response, in which CD8 + IFN- + T cells are the key effectors, is the critical step in controlling the infection. In both humans and mice, the major targets of this cellular response are a small set of immunodominant epitopes within specific members of the transsialidase super-family of surface antigens. The observation that the pattern of this recognition displays strain variation has been interpreted as indicative that immune evasion could be operating at a population level. The adaptive response reduces the parasite burden by >99%, with the infection becoming highly focal, and in BALB/c mice at least, confined predominantly to the large intestine, stomach, and to a lesser extent, the gut mesentery tissue and sites in the skin. The reason why the immune system is not able to eradicate the infection is unresolved. It does not appear to involve exhaustion of the CD8 + IFN- + T cell response, which continues to suppress, but not eliminate, the parasite burden throughout the long chronic stage. These findings have questioned the feasibility of developing an effective anti-T. cruzi vaccine. Experimental vaccination of animal models against T. cruzi infection has a long history, although there have been few instances in which unequivocal sterile protection has been reported. Approaches have included the use of attenuated parasites, immunisation with cell fractions, purified or recombinant proteins and the use of DNA vaccines. In the latter case, viral backbones based on vaccinia, yellow fever and adenovirus have been used to facilitate expression of a range of parasite antigens such as trans-sialidase, Tc24, and the amastigote surface protein-2 (ASP-2) (also a member of the trans-sialidase super-family). Reported outcomes include protection from lethal infection, reduction in the acute stage parasite burden, induction of a favourable cytokine profile, and reduction in disease pathology. However, detailed analysis of vaccine efficacy has been limited by an inability to accurately monitor parasite levels during the chronic stage and technical difficulties in assessing the effect of the immune response on tissue distribution following challenge infections. Recently, in vivo imaging approaches have been exploited to provide new insights into infection dynamics during experimental chronic Chagas disease. These studies have revealed the pantropic nature of acute stage infections, and shown that during the chronic stage, the adaptive immune response restricts parasites to small infection foci, predominantly within the GI tract. Other tissues and organs, including the heart and skeletal muscle, are infected sporadically, the extent of which is influenced by host:parasite genetics and immune status. Additional factors such as nutrition, environmental stimuli, age and co-infections could also play a role in this complex chronic infection profile. The survival of the small parasite foci within apparently tolerant sites is crucial for long-term infection, although the immunological context of these reservoirs is unknown. Another contributor to the long-term nature of T. cruzi infections could be the phenomenon of parasite dormancy; individual intracellular amastigotes can enter an apparently quiescent state in which they cease to replicate and exhibit reduced drug sensitivity. Neither the mechanisms involved, nor the potential implications for immune evasion have yet been established. Highly sensitive bioluminescence imaging involves the use of T. cruzi strains that have been modified to express a red-shifted luciferase reporter. The system allows the real-time monitoring of parasite burden in experimental mice during chronic stage infections. There is a robust correlation between parasite numbers and whole animal bioluminescence, with a limit of detection close to 100 parasites. Here, we describe the use of this imaging technology to assess the extent of protection in benznidazole-cured mice following re-challenge with homologous and heterologous strains. Our findings have important implications for vaccine strategies. Generation of recombinant ASP-2/TS vaccines The fusion gene encoding the ASP-2 and TS peptides (Fig 1A) was generated by linking sequences corresponding to the mouse Ig kappa chain signal peptide, ASP-2 amino acids 1-694 (GenBank accession no. U77951) and TS amino acids 1-624 (GenBank accession no. L38457). The furin 2A splice site linker was inserted between the trypanosome sequences to ensure the subsequent generation of two separate peptides from a single open reading frame. The ASP-2/TS fusion gene was cloned into the ChAdOx1 and MVA viralvectored vaccine platforms, and confirmed by sequencing prior to use in protection studies. Assessment of recombinant vaccine immunogenicity Vaccines were prepared in PBS and administered intramuscularly into the left and right quadriceps of mice. The ChAdOx1 vaccine was administered at 1x10 8 infectious units per dose. With MVA:ASP-2/TS, each dose was equivalent to 1x10 6 plaque forming units. ELISpots were carried out using either peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) or splenocytes. Briefly, MAIP ELISpot plates (Millipore) were coated at 4C overnight with anti-mouse IFN- mAb AN-18 (Mabtech), at 250 ng per well, and then blocked for 1 h with complete DMEM medium (plus 10% foetal calf serum). Whole blood was sampled by venesection of the tail vein and PBMCs were isolated using histopaque 1083 (Sigma), and plated at 5x10 5 cells per well in complete DMEM medium as above, with 20-mer specific peptides overlapping by 10 amino acids (10 g ml -1 ) (Pepscan Presto). Splenocytes from nave mice were plated at 2.5x10 5 per well. After 16 h incubation, cells were discarded and plates washed with PBS. 50 l of biotinylated anti-mouse IFN- mAb RA-6A2 (1:1000 in PBS) was then added to each well and incubated for 2 h. After another washing step, streptavidin peroxidase (Sigma) was added and incubated at 37C for 1 h. The plates were washed and developed with TMB substrate solution (Mabtech). When spots were visible, the reaction was stopped by washing the plate with water. Spots were analysed using an ELISpot reader, and the number of spot-forming cells/10 6 PBMCs producing IFN- was calculated. Murine infections and bioluminescence imaging Animal work was performed under UK Home Office project licence (PPL 70/8207) and approved by the LSHTM Animal Welfare and Ethical Review Board. Procedures were in accordance with the UK Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (ASPA). BALB/c mice were purchased from Charles River (UK), and CB17 SCID mice were bred in-house. Animals were maintained under specific pathogen-free conditions in individually ventilated cages. They experienced a 12 h light/dark cycle, with access to food and water ad libitum. SCID mice were infected with 1x10 4 bioluminescent bloodstream trypomastigotes (BTs) in 0.2 ml PBS via intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection. BALB/c female mice, aged 8-10 weeks, were infected i.p with 1x10 3 BTs derived from SCID mouse blood. At experimental end-points, mice were sacrificed by exsanguination under terminal anaesthesia. For in vivo imaging, mice were injected with 150 mg kg -1 d-luciferin i.p., then anaesthetized using 2.5% (v/v) gaseous isoflurane. They were placed in an IVIS Lumina II system (Caliper Life Science) 5-10 min after d-luciferin administration and images acquired using Living-Image 4.3. Exposure times varied from 30 s to 5 min, depending on signal intensity. After imaging, mice were revived and returned to cages. For ex vivo imaging, mice were injected with d-luciferin, and sacrificed by exsanguination under terminal anaesthesia 5 min later. They were then perfused via the heart with 10 ml 0.3 mg ml -1 d-luciferin in PBS. Organs and tissues were removed and transferred to a Petri dish in a standardized arrangement, soaked in 0.3 mg ml -1 d-luciferin in PBS, and imaged using maximum detection settings (5 min exposure, large binning). The remaining animal parts and carcass were checked for residual bioluminescent foci, also using maximum detection settings. To estimate parasite burden in live mice, regions of interest were drawn using LivingImage v.4.3 to quantify bioluminescence as total flux (photons/second), summed from dorsal and ventral images. The detection threshold for in vivo imaging was determined using uninfected mice. Drug treatment and immunosuppression Benznidazole was synthesized by Epichem Pty Ltd., Australia, and prepared at 10 mg ml −1 in an aqueous suspension vehicle containing 5% (v/v) DMSO, 0.5% (w/v) hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, 0.5% (v/v) benzyl alcohol and 0.4% (v/v) Tween 80. It was administered by oral gavage. To detect any residual infection following treatment, mice were immunosuppressed with cyclophosphamide monohydrate (Sigma) in D-PBS (200 mg kg −1 ), administered by i.p. injection every 4 days, for 3 doses. Two weeks after the end of immunosuppression, mice that were bioluminescence negative by both in vivo and ex vivo imaging were designated as cured. Monitoring ASP-2/TS vaccine efficacy using highly sensitive bioluminescence imaging The T. cruzi amastigote surface protein 2 (ASP-2) and trypomastigote cell surface protein trans-sialidase (TS) have shown promise as vaccine candidates against T. cruzi infections. To further assess their efficacy, we used two replication-deficient recombinant vaccine platforms, a chimpanzee adenovirus (ChAdOx1) and a Modified Vaccinia Ankara virus (MVA), expressing ASP-2 and TS peptides from a single open reading frame ( Fig 1A) (Materials and Methods). We used a homologous prime-boost vaccination strategy in which BALB/c mice received intramuscular injections administered one week apart ( Fig 1B) and confirmed immunogenicity of the vaccine delivery system using an ex vivo IFN- + ELISpot. Three weeks after receiving either a prime only, or a prime-booster vaccination, splenocytes were plated on antibody coated ELISpot plates. When these cells were then stimulated with a peptide pool representing the entire ASP-2/TS sequence, there was a pronounced increase in the number of peptide specific IFN- + splenocytes, particularly in those mice that had received the booster (Fig 1C). To test protective efficacy, mice were vaccinated using the homologous prime-boost strategy outlined above. Three weeks after the MVA booster, they were challenged by i.p. injection with 10 3 bioluminescent T. cruzi blood trypomastigotes (strain CL Brener) (Fig 2A). The resulting infection was monitored by in vivo imaging (Materials and Methods). In BALB/ c mice, parasites rapidly disseminate and proliferate, with the infection reaching a peak after approximately 2 weeks. Thereafter, a vigorous adaptive immune response reduces the parasite burden by >2 orders of magnitude, and the infection transitions to the life-long chronic stage. No differences were observed in the bioluminescence-inferred parasite burden between vaccinated and control mice at the earliest time-point assessed (day 7, post-infection) (Fig 2B and 2C). However, by day 15, the peak of the acute stage, the ASP-2/TS vaccinated mice displayed a 77% reduction in the bioluminescence-inferred parasite burden. This protective effect was maintained until day 21. By day 28, against a background of immune-mediated reduction in the parasite burden, there were no significant differences between the vaccinated and control groups. From that point onwards, the parasite burden remained similar between the groups (Fig 2B and 2C). Following termination of the experiment (day 95), ex vivo imaging of internal organs and tissues revealed that the profile of infection in the vaccinated cohort was typical of the chronic stage. The colon and/or stomach were the major tissues persistently parasitized, with infections in other organs being sporadic (S1 Fig). There were no apparent differences in the tissue-specific parasite burden between vaccinated and control mice ( Fig 2D). Therefore, although vaccination with the ASP-2/TS constructs can reduce parasite burden during the acute stage, bioluminescence imaging has revealed that it does not impact on the long-term burden of chronic infections. Drug-cured T. cruzi infection confers significant protection against challenge with a homologous strain To place the recombinant vaccine results into context, we sought to establish the extent to which drug-cured infections could enhance the capacity of the murine immune response to protect against challenge. We hypothesised that this would induce a high level of protection against which to compare the efficacy of vaccine candidates. BALB/c mice were first inoculated i.p. with bioluminescent parasites (CL Brener strain) (n = 12). At three different points postinfection (4, 14 and 36 days) (Fig 3A), we initiated treatment with benznidazole (100 mg kg -1 ), once daily, for 20 consecutive days. This dosing regimen was shown to be curative (S2 Fig), in line with previous results. The plasma concentration of benznidazole falls below the in vitro EC 50 value in approximately 12 h. 21 days after the cessation of treatment, the cured mice were re-infected i.p. and monitored regularly by in vivo imaging (Fig 3B and 3C). 70 days after challenge, mice found to be bioluminescence-negative were immunosuppressed to facilitate the outgrowth and dissemination of any residual parasites, then assessed further by ex vivo imaging two weeks later (Fig 3D) (Materials and Methods). We have previously shown that this methodology is considerably more reliable than PCR-based approaches at detecting surviving parasites. When curative treatment was initiated at 36 days post-infection, none of the mice exhibited a distinct acute stage infection peak following challenge (Fig 3B and 3C). There was >99% reduction in the inferred parasite burden in all cases, compared to primary infection control mice. At the experimental end-point, in 6 out of 12 mice, parasites were undetectable (Table 1, Fig 3D, S3 Fig). In cases where the primary infection was allowed to proceed for 14 days prior to the initiation of curative benznidazole treatment, the infection profile following challenge was very similar to the cohort where treatment was initiated 36 days post-infection. However, a greater number of foci were detectable during the period corresponding to the acute stage of primary infections (Fig 3B), with full protection achieved in 3 out of 12 mice. In contrast to both of the above, when curative treatment began 4 days after the primary infection, there was a clear acute stage peak in the bioluminescence profile following challenge (Fig 3C). The kinetic profile mirrored that in control infected mice, although the maximum parasite burden was 85% lower, and only a single mouse was judged to be protected (Table 1, S3 Fig). Therefore, although the immune response induced by a short course infection is able to impact on the burden of re-infection, the effect is significantly limited compared with what is achievable when the primary infection is allowed to progress fully into the acute stage, prior to treatment. To assess whether this protective effect was dependent on the route of inoculation, we repeated the 36 days challenge experiment using the subcutaneous (s.c.) route. T. cruzi PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES transmission normally occurs when parasite-infected faeces from the insect vector are rubbed into the wound produced by blood feeding; therefore, s.c. inoculation probably reflects more closely how the majority of human infections occur. The mice were inoculated s.c. with 10 3 bloodstream trypomastigotes for both the primary and challenge infections, but the protocols and treatment timelines were otherwise identical to those used previously (Fig 3A, 36 day infection). In control mice, the bioluminescence profile of s.c. infections, and the resulting organ-specific tropism during the chronic stage was similar to that in i.p. infections (Fig 4A, 4B and 4C), as shown previously. When the challenge cohort was assessed by in vivo imaging (Fig 4A), none of the mice displayed an acute stage peak, and bioluminescence was at, or close to background levels. At the experimental end-point, all of the mice were immunosuppressed and then subjected to post-mortem ex vivo organ imaging to test for foci of infection below the limit of in vivo detection. 4 out of 5 were found to be bioluminescence negative in all analyses and were designated as protected (Table 1). PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES It has been reported that the capacity of a cured mouse to resist re-infection is dependent on the size of the challenge inoculum. To investigate this using the in vivo imaging system, mice where curative treatment was initiated 36 days post infection were challenged i.p. with 6x10 4 CL Brener trypomastigotes, 60 times the number used previously. The outcome was similar. None of the mice displayed an acute stage parasite burden profile, and only a single mouse (out of 6) was designated non-protected (Fig 4D, 4E and 4F). Therefore, the level of protection conferred by a cured infection is similar when a higher challenge inoculum is used. We next sought to assess the extent of the immunological memory conferred by a primary drug-cured infection. BALB/c mice were infected i.p. with CL Brener trypomastigotes, and curative benznidazole treatment was initiated after 36 days. On this occasion, however, the mice were not re-infected until 338 days after the cessation of treatment. Following homologous challenge, the level of protection was comparable to that achieved in previous experiments when mice were re-infected 3 weeks after the last dose of benznidazole. They were able to prevent the onset of parasite proliferation during the acute stage, and parasites were nondetectable in 4 out of 6 mice (Fig 4G, 4H and 4I). Assessing circulating IFN- + T cells in mice after primary infection and challenge We sought to determine if the duration of the primary infection, prior to commencement of curative drug treatment, impacted on the extent of the T. cruzi-specific immune response to challenge with homologous parasites. Blood was collected, 2 days prior to re-infection and at regular intervals thereafter, from mice that had been infected for 4, 14 and 36 days (Fig 5A). PBMCs were isolated, re-stimulated with an ASP-2 and TS peptide pool, and the IFN- + cell frequencies measured by ELISpot (Materials and Methods). As expected for mice infected with T. cruzi, the control group receiving their first parasite exposure showed a delayed peptide-specific response, with the frequency of IFN- + cells on day 10 not significantly different to pre-infection levels. There were substantial increases by days 25 and 40 (Fig 5B), co-incident with the period when the parasite burden had been controlled and was undergoing major reduction (Fig 3B and 3C). PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES With benznidazole-cured mice, the pre-challenge levels of circulating T. cruzi peptide-specific IFN- + T cells varied, depending on the duration of the preliminary infection ( Fig 5B). Initially, mice that had been infected for 36 days prior to cure displayed higher levels than the control cohort (day -2). However, these levels did not increase significantly following re-infection, although in the case of the day 14 group, there was a slight trend in this direction. In the control group, the robust adaptive response, which controlled the infection, was associated with levels of circulating IFN- + T cells that were significantly higher than in any of the benznidazole-cured mice by 40 days post-challenge (Fig 5B). Mice that had been infected for only 4 days prior to drug-cure, displayed IFN- + T cell kinetics that were initially more similar to nave mice receiving their preliminary infection, with very low levels before and 10 days postchallenge, followed by a major increase by day 25. The levels decreased thereafter, in contrast to the control group, where they continued at higher levels until day 40. We also examined circulating peptide-specific IFN- + T cells in mice that had been reinfected 338 days after drug cure (Fig 6A). Prior to re-challenge, the levels were similar to Protection conferred by a benznidazole-cured infection is not dependent on the route of infection, size of the challenge inoculum or the time-period until re-infection. (A) BALB/c mice, infected by the subcutaneous (s.c.) route with 10 3 bioluminescent trypomastigotes (CL Brener strain), were subjected to curative benznidazole treatment 36 days post-infection. 21 days after the end of treatment, they were re-infected (s.c.). Control mice were also infected by the s.c. route. (B) Total body bioluminescence of drug-cured mice following s.c. re-infection (means ± SD). (C) Ex vivo bioluminescence imaging of organs and carcass from a control and the re-infected mouse that was found to be non-protected after immunosuppression (Materials and Methods). (D) BALB/c mice infected i.p. with CL Brener trypomastigotes, were subjected to benznidazole treatment 36 days post-infection. 21 days after the end of treatment, they were re-infected (i.p.) with 6x10 4 trypomastigotes. (E) Total body bioluminescence of drug-cured mice following re-infection. (F) Ex vivo bioluminescence imaging of organs and carcass of a control and the re-infected mouse that was found to be non-protected after immunosuppression. (G) As above, BALB/c mice were infected i.p. and subjected to curative benznidazole treatment. 338 days after the end of treatment, they were re-infected (i.p.) with 10 3 trypomastigotes. (H) Total body bioluminescence of drug-cured mice following re-infection. The increased mean bioluminescence of the re-infected mice towards the end of the monitoring period was due to an intense bioluminescence focus in one of the two non-protected animals. (I) Ex vivo bioluminescence imaging of organs and carcass of a control and a re-infected mouse that was found to be non-protected after immunosuppression. In all cases, the original cohort size was n = 6. During the course of the s.c. infection experiment (A-C), one mouse failed to recover from anaesthesia, and was excluded from the analysis. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0007717.g004 PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES Monitoring immunity against T. cruzi infections by in vivo imaging those in non-infected control mice. However, by 10 days post-challenge, there had been a 5-fold increase, in contrast to the delayed peptide-specific response typical of a T. cruzi infection ( Fig 6B). This difference was not maintained, and on days 25 and 40 after challenge, the level of IFN- + T cells was not significantly different from control mice. The capacity of drug-cured infections to confer a cross-strain protective response T. cruzi displays significant genetic diversity, with the natural population subdivided into 6 lineages known as discrete typing units (DTUs), each of which has the ability to infect humans. We therefore investigated if the capacity to confer homologous protection is a general feature of T. cruzi infections by performing an analogous experiment using JR strain parasites from the genetically distant TcI lineage. In BALB/c mice, infections with this strain are slightly slower to reach the peak of the acute stage, but the bioluminescence profile is otherwise similar to that of the CL Brener strain (DTU VI lineage). Mice were benznidazole-treated 36 days into a JR infection, and re-infected with the same strain 20 days after the end of treatment ( Fig 7A). As before, we observed that the cured infection conferred significant protection. None of the mice exhibited a distinct acute stage peak, with the majority remaining close to bioluminescence background levels (Fig 7B and 7C). However, only a single mouse (out of 6) exhibited full protection as assessed by ex vivo imaging following immunosuppression (Materials and Methods) (Fig 7D). PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES To assess the scope for vaccine-induced species-wide immunity, we next investigated the effectiveness of protection conferred against a heterologous challenge using the strains CL Brener (TcVI) and JR (TcI). Following the strategy outlined above, BALB/c mice were infected i.p. with 10 3 bloodstream CL Brener or JR trypomastigotes, benznidazole-treated, and then challenged with the heterologous strain 20 days after the end of the curative therapy. In both experiments, we observed a strong protective response (>99%) (Fig 7E-7J), with no distinct acute stage peak and a reduced number of bioluminescent foci in the period corresponding to the transition to the chronic stage. However, in both cases, all mice exposed to cross-strain challenge displayed small but clear parasite foci following re-infection. None were bioluminescence-negative when examined by ex vivo imaging, with each displaying the type of GI tract infections characteristic of the chronic stage (Fig 7G and 7J). Therefore, although infection with a heterologous strain can have a major impact on the subsequent parasite burden, it did not lead to parasite elimination in any of the mice examined. Discussion Although experimental T. cruzi vaccines have been widely shown to reduce the burden of infection in animal models, there is little unambiguous evidence for sterile protection. Despite this, there have been an increasing number of reports that vaccination could have therapeutic benefits in terms of decreased cardiac pathology [33,. Therefore, the question as to whether the development of a Chagas disease vaccine might be a practical option for reducing the public health impact of this infection remains unanswered. Detailed assessment has been limited by difficulties in detecting the intermittent low-level parasitemia of chronic stage infections, and in identifying the tissue/organ location of persistent parasites. Here, we demonstrate that highly sensitive bioluminescent imaging can negate some of these issues, and provide novel insights into vaccine efficacy. PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES Initially, we tested the protective properties of two viral vectors (MVA and ChAdOx1) that had been modified to express an ASP-2/TS fusion gene (Fig 1). The reduction in peak parasite burden (77%, Fig 2C) was in a range similar to that reported for other recombinant T. cruzi vaccines . Interestingly, vaccination had no impact on the parasite burden once the infection had begun transition to the chronic phase, suggesting that if parasites can survive until this stage of the disease, they are less susceptible to clearance by vaccine-induced immunity. This has not been reported previously. At the experimental end-point, bioluminescence imaging allowed us to demonstrate that the remaining parasites were restricted predominantly to the GI tract, with other organs/tissues infected only sporadically (Fig 2D, S1 Fig). In BALB/c and other mice, the colon and/or stomach serve as a permissive niche, enabling parasites to persist in an otherwise hostile immune environment, although the mechanism(s) for this have yet to be elucidated. To determine if this might limit the utility of a Chagas disease vaccine, we therefore investigated the protective effect of benznidazole-cured infections, on the basis that these should provide optimal levels of immunity. Curative treatment has been associated with the development of a stable anti-T. cruzi CD8 + T cell population. PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES Drug-cure was initiated after infection for 36 days (a time-point when the adaptive CD8 + T cell response is controlling the infection), 14 days (the peak of the acute stage), and 4 days (just short of one complete round of the intracellular replication cycle that leads to differentiation and parasite egress) (Fig 3). Mice infected for 36 days prior to benznidazole treatment were highly protected from challenge (Fig 3B), with complete absence of a typical acute stage peak. However, parasites were eventually detectable in half of the re-infected mice (Table 1). Therefore, although drug-cured infections can generate a highly effective immune response, that prevents a second acute phase, parasites that evade this initial encounter seem to be refractory to immune-mediated elimination and are able to persist long term. This outcome was not significantly influenced by the size of the challenge inoculum or the route of infection (Fig 4). Initiating treatment after 14 days was also able to prevent a detectable acute stage peak in bioluminescence when the mice were challenged, although there was a slight reduction in the number of mice where parasites were undetectable (Fig 3B, Table 1). In contrast, when drugcure was initiated after 4 days, a pronounced post-challenge acute stage peak could be observed, but even then, the parasite burden was 85% lower than in a naive infection. Therefore, 14 days exposure to an untreated infection is sufficient for the induction of a robust immune response, whereas with 4 days, the response appears to be less developed, although still sufficient to have a significant impact on the parasite burden. Studies on the protective potential of benznidazole-cured infections have been reported previously, where treatment was initiated 15-days post-infection. However, parasite recrudescence in these experiments was monitored after cyclophosphamide-mediated immunosuppression, making it difficult to compare the protective outcomes with those reported here. A delayed onset of the CD8 + T cell response is a characteristic feature of Chagas disease, with the first round of intracellular infections passing largely undetected by the immune system. Upon invasion of mammalian cells, parasites rapidly escape from the phagolysosome, there is down-modulation of the host cell immunoproteasome, and minimal activation of the host-pattern recognition receptors. Induction of effective innate immunity requires a full cycle of parasite replication, host cell lysis, and the release of trypomastigotes into the extracellular milieu, a process that takes at least 4-5 days. This is followed by the production of pathogen-associated and damage-associated molecular patterns that promote innate immune responses, allowing parasitized cells to flag up their infected status by MHC class I antigen presentation. Full development of the CD8 + T cell response to T. cruzi infections takes around 3 weeks. In mice where curative treatment was initiated 14 or 36 days post-infection, circulating parasite peptide-specific IFN- + T cells were readily detectable prior to challenge ( Fig 5B), and were associated with protection against the development of a second acute phase profile. Experimental challenge did not lead to a significant increase in the level of circulating IFN- + T cells. Although we did not study the distinct contributions of peptide-specific CD4/ CD8 T cell responses in the periphery, it is possible that the pre-existing effector population was able to contain the secondary challenge without further activation/expansion. Assays of peptide-specific T cell responses in the spleen were not feasible due to the requirement for end-point immunosuppression to promote outgrowth of the parasites. In agreement with previous studies, in some cases the parasites inoculated during the secondary challenge escaped from immunity conferred by the drug-cured infection, and were able to survive long-term. In mice where curative treatment was initiated 4 days into the primary infection, the level of T. cruzi peptide-specific IFN- + T cells prior to re-infection was negligible, and the kinetics of the response induced over the first 25 days of the challenge infection was similar to that in the controls (Fig 5). Despite this, there was an 85% reduction in the parasite burden at the peak of the re-infection. Therefore, the induced partially protective effect in these mice is conferred either by an extremely low level of circulating parasite-specific IFN- + T cells, or by other factors that operate to moderate the infection. In mice challenged almost a year after curative treatment of the primary infection, the level of protection was similar to mice in which the gap between the end of treatment and challenge was only~20 days. However, unlike these mice, re-infection after almost a year was accompanied by induction of peptide-specific T cells, with kinetics that were more rapid than in the naive control cohort (Fig 6). This evidence for a memory response suggests that vaccine-mediated long-term protection against fulminant T. cruzi infection may be a feasible goal. Furthermore, if these results can be extrapolated to humans, it would imply that patients who have undergone curative drug treatment could have the added benefit of a high level of stable protection against re-infection. We also investigated the extent to which benznidazole-cured infections could provide cross-strain protection. T. cruzi is highly diverse, with six major genetic lineages that display considerable geographic overlap. Taxonomy is further complicated by the widespread existence of hybrid strains. Mice initially infected with the T. cruzi CL Brener (TcVI) were challenged with the JR strain (TcI), and vice-versa. Although, suppression of the parasite burden was similar to that in a homologous challenge (>99%), sterile protection was not achieved (Fig 7), with surviving parasites persisting at very low levels. This suggests that there is a potential for co-infection with a different lineage, but that the secondary infection would be unlikely to pass through an acute stage. It also highlights that there may be limits to the level of protection conferred on patients who have undergone curative treatment. We have suggested a model for chronic Chagas disease in which the gut (and perhaps other tissues, such as the skin or skeletal muscle) acts as an immunologically tolerant reservoir for T. cruzi persistence, with periodic trafficking to other sites, where the parasites are then destroyed rapidly by immune effector mechanisms. In the heart, this can lead to cumulative collateral damage that ultimately gives rise to cardiac pathology We now further propose that when parasites establish infections in the GI tract, or other permissive sites, they become refractory to elimination by the vigorous adaptive responses induced by drug-cured infections. Thus, the effectiveness of a Chagas disease vaccine could depend on the efficiency with which the primed immune system prevents T. cruzi from reaching the relative safety of these sites of persistence, and its ability to maintain this response over time against a wide range of strains. The results presented here, and elsewhere, highlight the possibility that current subunit/DNA vaccines may be unable to fulfil these requirements under the schedules used for administration, although their ability to prevent lethal outcomes and provide therapeutic benefits merits further research. In addition, the long-term protection conferred by a drug-cured live infection suggests that the use of parasites, suitably attenuated by genetic modification, may be an approach worth exploring to identify an effective vaccine. |
Empowering the lowland indigenous community through child health and nutrition program in Occidental Mindoro Province, Philippines Nutrition and child health programs were integrated into the extension programs from 2016-2018 of the Occidental Mindoro State College, in partnership with the local government unit at the municipal and barangay levels. This paper presents the health extension tools and techniques used in preventative care and the promotion of child health services in the indigenous community of Sitio Bato Singit, in the Occidental Mindoro Province, Philippines. Health education, small group techniques, demonstrations, storytelling, informal talks, and open forums were the methods and techniques employed to implement the program. The common tools used were seating arrangements, flip-charting, props, social hours, and recreation. In terms of the evaluation of the program, child health outcomes remain poor, despite the efforts of the different blocks working within the health system. These programs could enhance their health knowledge and practices in other extension modalities. Introduction Due to the scarcity of the health workers worldwide, community health workers are widely used to provide care for a broad range of health issues especially in the developing countries as they are the first responders of universal health coverage (Desta & Basha, 2017;). However, there is limited evidences from available sources about the effectiveness of establishing community health workers in implementing comprehensive primary health care, especially as regards child health, the primary indicator of a country's health status (). In the Philippines, despite of the the efforts in reducing both infant and under-fiveyear-old child mortality rates, the performance in reducing maternal and fetal death rates is not as commendable. Nowadays, infectious diseases and accidents remains the cause of child and infant deaths. Lastly malnutrition in children under five has also shown very slow progress in the country (Cetrngolo, Mesa-Lago, Lazaro, & Carisma, 2013). Received: April 2 nd, 2020 || Revised: April 20 th, 2020 || Accepted: July 29 th, 2020 "Am boyag, ko boyag" is a Buhid translation for "my life, your life." It is contextualized in the philosophy that the life processes of other people in the community are the shared responsibility of every member. The health of an individual is a reflection of public efforts toward a healthcare for the common good. Children's health is vital to the nation's present and future and reflects the way's communities address their collective commitment to children. Different efforts concerning future generations are at the center of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) endeavor. The current study further theorizes on the concept of sustainability around children's health and wellbeing. The health of children and their future is intimately linked to the health of our planet (). Based on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, "indigenous peoples have the right to their traditional medicines and to maintain their health practices, including the conservation of their vital medicinal plants, animals and minerals. Indigenous individuals also have the right to access, without any discrimination, to all social and health services. In addition, indigenous individuals have an equal right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. States shall take the necessary steps with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of this right" (United Nations, 2007). With this challenge, health care workers must integrate social perspective in the promotion of healthcare access. This suggest that health extension workers are well situated to influence these social aspects, improving access to healthcare services broadly, and among indigenous people (Horrill, McMillan, Schultz, & Thompson, 2018). In many ways, children's health depends on how well a country tends to its environment (). Changing patterns of childhood illness, including infectious diseases, are often based on poor environmental sanitation (). The promotion of a healthy environment can significantly reduce the incidence of premature deaths and, by extension, minimize the significant healthcare costs of environment-related diseases (Shrivastava, Shrivastava, & Ramasami, 2016). Sanitation and hygiene are key to children's survival, development, and growth (Russell & Azzopardi, 2019). Holistic solutions are required that consider economic feasibility and all the various aspects of sanitation, including government support, social acceptability, as well as technological applications that can be effectively adapted to local conditions (). A study from Nigeria suggests promotion of informal training and education to women without formal education increase their knowledge, and practices in health and nutrition which in turn enhance child nutrition outcomes (). Several priority interventions have been offered to improve childhood nutrition in developing countries. These include a wide range of expertise, methods, and data. Priorities in child health and nutrition suggests the combination of interventions to improve diet quality and other supplemental food to the at-risk mothers and children (). Elsewhere, the strong design and integration of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), and nutrition interventions are evidently progressing. To identifying factors that enable or interfere with progressive outcomes several context are suggested to determine. Inclusion of theory-based and evidence-based behaviorchanging strategies are also being applied (Aboud & Yousafzai, 2018). The integration of different programs in child health and nutrition is likely to foster additional benefits for young children without undermining the original service. However, the results of the implementation only show the positive effects on the child's development and less on their nutritional status. Thus, it's important to improve the functioning of the programs and to establish quality control mechanisms (Grantham-Mcgregor, Fernald, Kagawa, & Walker, 2014). A study suggests timely modifications to more effectively integrate the child development schemes and consider strategies to bring desired improvements in children's health. This strategy includes specific nutritional interventions such as infant and young childcare and nutrition, maternal care nutrition and health, and adolescent care, while addressing other health services. All districts having high rates of malnutrition should also be targeted, with the nutritional status consistently measured in real time. Newer interventions include height measurements of children, social audits, and establishing nutrition resource centers, to promote community involvement in nutrition efforts (Aggarwal & Kakkar, 2019). Community development through conscientization and behavior change The concept of conscientization is defined by the Brazilian educator Paolo Friere in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed as "learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take actions against the oppressive elements of reality". The idea concerns education for critical consciousness. Friere came to believe that a necessary condition for social symmetry in education and in society in general was to concentrate on a community's practical problems, (Staczyk & Gdaski, 2017). "Emancipatory transformation is not an event or classroom project but a sustainable way of being supported by a community of people who are motivated and committed by their own need for conscientization enlightenment" (Dawson & Avoseh, 2018). A study revealed that application of holistic framework that is based theories and solutions-based approaches governs the idea of sustainability. It also revealed that critical times and conditions require critical measures and interventions, it is believed that novel sustainability imaginations and applications will emerge from this process of holistic conscientization. This concept has been adopted by several implementers in response to sanitation and nutrition services (Agbezuge, 2018;Sesan, Jewitt, Clifford, & Ray, 2018). The theory of planned behavior is a "prominent framework for predicting and explaining behavior in a variety of domains. The theory is also increasingly being used as a framework for conducting behavior change interventions. It is shown that the interventions' effectiveness varied for the diverse behavior change methods. In addition, interventions conducted in public and with groups were more successful than interventions in private locations or focusing on individuals which is moderated by gender and education" (). A study revealed that behavior change theory is an effective tool in improving hygiene and sanitation related issues; however, these theories have not been extensively examined (). Rigorous implementation of large scale interventions deployed in the context of a developing community have focused on high technology using different behavioral change strategies in improving water, sanitation and hygiene practices () which can be limited in the underdeveloped and developing countries. Several projects in WASH and nutrition utilize behavioral change (;De ;), suggesting that developers work with stakeholders to create a relevant theory. Promoting self-empowerment in the community Community empowerment refers to the process of enabling communities to increase control over their lives. Engagement is very important to the concept of empowerment. The community is invited to develop their potential together. People who want to learn want to be empowered. Community learning can improve mental models, systems thinking, determining and implementing the vision of self, and organization in society, as well as the willingness to develop themselves and their personalities (Yuesti & Sumantra, 2017). Communities have different cultures, norms and beliefs related to shared and individual practices which may later affect the competence, engagement, and capacity of the community. These differences may also affect the overall perception of health and later impede the health system efforts to promote health (Ferguson, Swan, & Im, 2019). Even if the program has a potential impact, community members could only benefit from it if they know about it and are willing to make use of its services. The acceptance of the program by community members is an important driver of program success. Apart from the individual engagement in pursuing the activities, and the magnitude of program promotion in the neighborhoods, networks of peers and kin play a particularly important role. A study shows that creating psychologically-informed interventions to increase engagement in health-promoting behaviors leads to better health outcomes among low-income adults, particularly in racial/ethnic minorities (). It was also proven that good community-level health care and holistic development can result in good national health outcomes, and that ideal community health and development can only be attained by participation and empowerment. Hence, the metrics for community empowerment should be developed and implemented by government toward sustainable health and development, while ensuring the scientific validity of community health interventions (). The purpose of this community engagement is to offer preventive and promotive child health services in the indigenous community of Sitio Bato Singit. Through the integration of different health programs and the application of conscientization and behavior changes, the programs become a good example for Occidental Mindoro as well as in the Philippines at large. This paper also presents the strategies and methods utilized to implement the program, as well as the constraints and lessons. Study design Using the Community Organizing Participatory Action Research (COPAR) approach, the extension program utilized multimethod data gathering technique to design the program ( Figure 1). Study site Sitio Bato Singit is in Barangay Manoot in the munipality of Rizal and province of Occidental Mindoro. The Buhid Mangyans are one of the few indigenous groups in the Philippines who continue to use their original syllabary. The ancestral land plays a significant role in the life of the Buhid Mangyans. Other than a source of subsistence, the land represents the identity, culture, spirituality, and legacy of the Buhid Mangyans. Accordingly, the ancestral land itself and its natural environment are well-maintained. The Buhid Mangyan are known to be farmers. Swidden farming or kaingin has always been their main source of livelihood. This process entails slash-and-burn forest vegetation to concentrate soil nutrients into a carpet of ash and ensure that the forestcover will be quickly replaced with cultivated plants and trees. The Buhid Mangyan used to have an indigenous political structure headed by a Gurangon, also known as Tanungan. The Gurangon/ Tanungan are leaders for each big river (Safa Dahol). The river defines a cluster composed of a number of associated communities where each community is headed by a leader called Tahinan. Presently, only Project Site Selection Identification of target area, partnership building Phase Out Pull-out of services, impact assessment Documentation, Communication, Evaluation the tahinan exists in the form of sitio leaders. To this end, leadership is based on election. These leaders are responsible for the management of their ancestral domain. Partnership The institutional implementer of the extension project is Occidental Mindoro State Moreover, preventive and promotive health measures were conducted at the request of community leaders. The extension implementers collaboratively engaged different groups and government agencies in the province to participate in delivering community health services. Participatory rural appraisal Benchmarking is a significant instrument through the Participatory Rural Appraisal to appraise the health needs of the community prior to initiating the extension activities. A Community Health Survey was conducted to assess family and community health conditions as a form of Rapid Rural Appraisal. Extension workers also employed a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) to consider the main health needs of mothers and children and possible solutions. After the PRA and the validation of data, the program implementer devised plans and programs in collaboration with barangay health workers (BHWs), rural health midwives (RHM), municipal health officers (MHO), barangay officials, and elders and tribal leaders. This formed the basis of the extension activities. Students were also involved in the data collection, such as conducting the survey, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions as part of their training in public and community health. Those were Primary Health Care (the focus of community organizing and participatory action research, or COPAR) and Community Health Services Management. Students were the most dependable for those activities since faculty members do not participate in the extension program. They believe that the PRA, Training Needs Assessment, preparing the training design, coordinating with the community, and conducting the extension, monitoring, and evaluation already make for a tasking job (Declaro-Ruedas & Lumbo, 2017). After validation of community health surveys and health needs assessments, the next step was to devise plans and programs with the Barangay Health Council, the RHM, and the MHO. These formed the basis of extension activities. Impact assessment for phase out In order to prepare the necessary data for the Phase Out and the sustainability development, the implementer conducted a nutrition and child-feeding survey. At this point, the extension implementer conducted an impact assessment before pulling out of the extension services in the community. The impact assessment involved an anthropometric survey of 6-59-month-old toddlers. The instrument also included introduction and consent statements, questions on selected household characteristics, like access to health and nutrition programs and consultation services, vitamin A supplements, deworming, and childhood vaccinations. Anthropometric measurements were also gathered: height, weight, and mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) and bilateral edema. MUAC measurements were taken from the toddlers using MUAC tapes for children. MUAC was measured on their left arms. In getting the MUAC, the midpoint of the left arm was identified by bending it 90 degrees and then locating the tip of the shoulder blade and tip of the elbow. The midpoint was then lightly marked with a pen, and the arm was put in a relaxed position. The MUAC tape was then carefully positioned around the arm, making sure that it was not too tight or too loose. MUAC measurements of children were recorded in millimeters. The presence of bilateral edema was determined among the toddlers by applying light pressure with both thumbs to both feet for three seconds. Edema is present if an imprint was left on either foot. If edema was detected, it was recorded in the questionnaire. Small talks and social recreation In order to gain people's trust and form good working relationships in the community, extension implementers occasionally communicate through small talks. This provides an opportunity to not just transmit new knowledge or recommendations, but it also devotes time to building up the confidence and interest of individuals in the community. The first few minutes of contact help establish a good rapport, particularly if it is the first meeting. Methods of establishing rapport and of initiating conversation differ from culture to culture. Small talk to break the ice is often an essential first step that gives both sides a chance to relax and get to know each other before more serious matters are discussed. Similarly, local customs should be followed as regards accepting hospitality. Recreational activities provide outlets for the community to relax, socialize, and engage with the newcomers. Individuals in the community attended the events because it was fun, engaging, and made them "feel good," they said, especially the socializations where the extension workers and the community shared a feast. Since the extension implementers encouraged the students' involvement, it was an opportunity for the students to learn in community engagement and development as well. For the students, it created an avenue for the culturally relevant interventions to enrich their education and leadership skills. Thus, it pushed them to attend beyond student-led periods. A recent study using an integrational approach to improve health awareness showed that community participants continued to attend beyond the formally announced activities, indicating the importance of developing enjoyable and sustainable interventions. This study also recommends that university faculty and students promote sustainability of their interventions by engaging communities to understand their preferences, and improve the long-range community health (Feinberg, Bowman, & Lipman, 2016). The storytelling focused only on one health issue at a time. We look at health in a big picture -what is preventing people from being healthy? How this present scenario can be changed? And how does it affect community development? Workshop and information, education, and communication materials dissemination Globally, IEC has been found to be effective in the implementation of health programs, as it encourages engagement and critical thinking among learners in communities. In the Philippines it is widely used in the implementation of different health services (Figure 3). In one study from India, IEC was found to be a neglected area in the national health program, with districts with inadequate budgets and human resources with poor implementation (Thakur, Jaswal, & Grover, 2017). Fg. 3 health education implementation in the community Source: Author Partnered with other health workers, extension workers assist in educating the community especially mothers, children, community health workers and leaders, in the targeted areas of health, nutrition, water, hygiene, and sanitation. The extension implementers conduct various health classes on the importance of health seeking, nutrition in the first 1000 days, nutrition in emergencies, preparation and storage of clean drinking water, preparation of oral hydrating solution, breastfeeding, expanded programs for immunization, deworming, hand washing, sanitation, and hygiene. In various activities, behavior change techniques were employed, especially when focused on hygiene and sanitation. Clean water, safe removal of excretia, and personal hygiene are three key elements of any strategy to improve public health. In one of the activities, community participants were gathered around on ground with feces close-by a cup with food. The participants were encouraged to observe the following events: the flies landed on the fecesand a moment later, on the food. The facilitator picked up the food and tried to offer it to the participants. As expected, none of them accepted. The facilitator encouraged the participants to reflect and think of the consequences of open defecation. That sparked a conversation and learning engagement which encouraged the participant's conscious learning process, which they later were able to apply (Figure 4). Fg. 4 Activities employed behavioral change and conscientization Source: Author Many times, the knowledge and attitudes of the community increase quickly. It is, however, critical to maintain and sustain the practices after the phase-out period. Defecation behaviors are greatly affected by the physical environment, particularly the the presence of clean and safe facility. Individually, defecation behavior were influenced by the motivation and habits especially when available, water was the preferred material for flushing, washing, anal cleansing and hand hygiene (Pfadenhauer & Rehfuess, 2015). In a study, it was revealed that WASH programs, more broadly, concentrates in creating initial behavioral changes, highlighting on the habituation of improved behaviors and behavioral maintenance. However, these approaches may bring regression back to unimproved behaviors and practices, and poor sustainability of behavioral outcomes and potential health impacts (;Harter, Mosch, & Mosler, 2018;). Table 1 shows the different activities that focus on the child's health and nutrition. In creating training designs and implementing activities, the following principles were considered: 1. In keeping with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, "every child has the right to access to care for the most prevalent causes of illness and death, as well as to measures to prevent them" (UN General Assembly, 1989). 2. Improving childcare and feeding will improve nutritional status of the children in the community. Since it is considered a cycle, a child's observed behavior on proper food and hygiene practices will most likely practice this during adulthood or parenthood. 3. Households can prevent nutrition-related illness and water-and foodborne diseases by disposing of feces safely, by washing hands after defecation, before preparing meals, and before feeding children. Hence, integrating the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) program is essential. 4. The First 1000 days has been called the "golden window of opportunity" for a comprehensive nutritional intervention to combat child stunting, underweight and wasting, at the same time contribute to complete child development. Improved sanitation and washing of hands are one important action in reducing morbidity and mortality from diarrheal virus. However, creating a drastic change sanitation and hygiene is quite challenging. Households must make appropriate practice in an arena which is intensely private. Creating such choices requires that all institutional stakeholders collaborate effectively (;Jakimow, 2008). Nutritionally adequate and safe complementary feeding, starting from the age of six months up to 59 months, is one of the most effective interventions for reducing infant and child morbidity and malnutrition. Ensuring nourishment for Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) is adhering to criteria such as food availability, access to food, utilization of food and stability/sustainability to achieve food security. Children who receive good nutrition in the first year of life grow healthier as they age. Good childhood nutrition has good outcomes, not only for their own health status but also for the national health and productivity. Training of Health Workers Community Health Workers (CHWs) bring their unique capacity to connect patients, communities, and health care systems to health care teams. In the Philippines, the firsthand workers for health are the BHW. In the virtue of Republic of the Philippines, Republic Act 7883 also known as The Barangay Health Workers' Benefits and Incentives Act of 1995, BHW refers to a "person who has undergone training programs under any accredited government and non-government organization and who voluntarily renders primary health care services in the community after having been accredited to function as such by the local health board in accordance with the guidelines promulgated by the Department of Health". In line with this, the extension implementers conducted seminars, trainings, and workshops to train the BHWs in standard operating procedures in doing routine health check-ups, and in simple measures for tending to the clients in the community. One of the training concentrations is the BHW role in the management of childhood illnesses and nutrition ( Figure 5). Fg. 5 Barangay Health Workers Training Source: Author Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) Training was designed to equip health workers in the primary care setting with skills in the integrated management of sick infants and children. Rather than relying on laboratory support to diagnose an illness, workers are trained to use a few clinical signs and action-oriented classifications for diagnosis (). The success of the program greatly relies on the multi-sectoral and interdisciplinary approaches in community development which relates to the stakeholders within the health care team and the community organizations. This is due to the innovative structure for in creating of patient-centered approach in application of holistic care continuum across clients in different gender, age, health status, health concerns to promote inclusive and equitable health promotion (). It was supported by a study remarking that training of CHWs removes barriers to service provision. Hence, CHWs may contribute substantially in addressing the child's health needs in the community (). Impact assessment in preparation for phase out Impact of the program was measured by statistics and health indicators in the community. It has been shown that despite the efforts of the various blocks working in the health system, nutritional status in the community is still poor. High incidence of malnutrition (17%), stunting (54.9%) and underweight (37.7%) was observed (Gonzales & Salvador, 2020) as shown in the Table 2 below. Proportion of complementary feeding started at six months was lower in a low-income community. Introduction of complementary feeding at six months of age is crucial for preventing malnutrition in infants (Chandwani, Prajapti, Rana, & Sonaliya, 2015). By implementing the IYCF program, it was noted that continued education exposure and sustained impacts on IYCF knowledge and practices in intensive areas produced lasting benefits from interventions (). This suggests scaling up by streamlining tools and strategies, increasing government focus, forming partnerships and communitybased health systems, and mainstreaming nationwide the unification and alignment of government and non-government agencies and organizations in all sectors () to avoid duplication and redundancy. Gonzales and Salvador The Buhid Mangyans may experience similar difficulties in securing food at the household level. However, due to cultural variations, the level of food insecurity and coping mechanisms may vary across tribes. It has been shown that nutrition is linked with food security in almost all communities. Agriculture and food production plays more active role in the economic and social aspects of development especially in health and nutrition. The main issue is building a food system that can lead to which could lead to improved food access, food security, nutrition and development (Fan & Brzeska, 2016). A study suggests that a systems approach can create policy interventions across different sectors, establishing programs that effectively improve access, affordability and acceptable food sources and diet, contributing to better food and nutritional security for the population (Kawabata, Berardo, Mattei, & de Pee, 2020). Another study suggests that, in order to respond to the rising challenge of the nutrition transition and to achieve zero hunger and malnutrition, policymakers and program managers must be equipped with better data to design adequate programs and policies that equitable access to nutrition (Ruel, Garrett, Yosef, & Olivier, 2017). Immunization was observed to be minimally practiced in the community despite the efforts of CHWs and other stakeholders, as shown in Table 3. Moreover, high incidence of diarrheal diseases and acute respiratory disease was observed in the community. Gonzales and Salvador Lack of knowledge and awareness in cultural differences and cultural competency among health program implementers may lead to misunderstanding towards their health needs and may affect their access to the minimum available health services. To realize the benefit of health seeking and acceptance, appropriate health service should be offered to them (). Low levels of education and cultural barriers may likewise make health information inaccessible due to low acceptance (Gadsden, Ford, & Breiner, 2016). Similar study in the Philippines revealed that mothers failed to avail health services due to encountered barriers due to traditional beliefs. Thus, in implementing health services plans should be adoptive with the cultural pattern of the targeted population within a given community () in order to create culture sensitive appropriate intervention. A study suggests applying more sensitive health programs and activities might improve efforts toward health care access and reduction of the burden of diseases (Thummapol, Barton, & Park, 2018). The problems encountered by the extension workers were: the distance from the program implementers' station to remote areas was far and communication was sometimes difficult, especially with the dole-out attitude of the community, low and wrong health information system often observed mistaken health indicators, the language barriers intimidated people who were scared and hesitant to speak Tagalog or the Buhid language. Thus, the programs could enhance their health knowledge and practices by using other forms of extension modalities. Hailu stated that attribution of all improvements in the health sector to the effective implementation of health extension is difficult to acknowledge at this point and there is only a loose coordination among different government bodies taking concerted measures. Therefore, health system consideration must include deployment of health professionals as health extension workers with proper and acceptable compensation for motivation. Conclusion Health education, small group techniques, demonstrations, storytelling, informal talks and open forums were the methods and techniques employed to implement the program. The common tools used were seating arrangements, flipcharting, props, social hours, and recreation. In terms of the evaluation of the program, child health remains lackluster despite the efforts of different blocks working in the health system. Thus, this program could enhance their health knowledge and practice in other forms of extension modalities. The study recommends student involvement for extension mobilization, particularly to the department that has only a few faculty members. This strategy would really suggest that extension activities effectively facilitate the programs/projects. The impact study of the extension program must be conducted to determine how much the program contributed to raising the quality of life among Buhids. A mechanism of the extension program must be instituted to monitor, evaluate, and sustain linkage-extension projects. The trainers would recommend learning the indigenous languages and dialects to obtain the correct and accurate information and provide quality health delivery services. Good interpersonal communication and counseling skills may initiate the harmonious working relationship and establish rapport, so that health programs can offer them appropriately. More linkages mean more chances to effectively advocate for extension program funding, logistics, and sometimes human resources. It has been established that the good working relationship between these partners in enabling the sustained effectiveness of the program to meet the SDGs targets by 2030. Capability building can be considered to find other efficient and effective extension modalities waiting for acceptance of their applications. Author Contribution Artemio Morado Gonzales Jr conceived of the presented idea, developed the theory, performed data gathering procedures, verified the analytical methods, and ensured integrity of the result. |
More than a decade ago, ecologist Scott Ollinger helped launch U.S. ecology’s flagship foray into big science. He and other researchers worked to transform the National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) dream of a continental-scale observatory that would monitor environmental change into a concrete plan. What emerged was the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), a unique string of more than 100 data collection stations spread from Alaska to Puerto Rico.
So Ollinger was thrilled when, in 2013, NEON offered him the chance to oversee the network’s expected trove of data on long-term changes in climate, land use, bio-diversity, and invasive species. He arranged for a 3-year leave of absence from his post at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. Then he hit the road to NEON’s headquarters in Boulder, Colorado.
En route, however, Ollinger learned that NSF, which is paying for NEON, had put a hold on an initial $111 million grant to begin operating some of the newly built stations. That meant “I was almost fired the day I arrived,” he says.
The disturbing news was a harbinger of worse to come. Despite his impressive title of observatory director, Ollinger discovered that he had little influence over how NEON was being built, or the day-to-day activities of its growing scientific staff. Soon, “the number of decisions I tried to make that were overruled reached a point where I felt there was no way I could succeed,” he recalls. Frustrated and feeling powerless, Ollinger returned home after less than a year.
NEON jobs plentiful but problematic By Jeffrey Mervis Getting a job in ecology can be tough, but the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) arguably has been hiring more ecologists than anyplace else; its workforce topped some 400 permanent and 100 summer employees earlier this year. But NEON’s disarray has led to high turnover and taken a toll on promising careers. Elizabeth Webb was hired in 2014 to manage field sampling protocols and sensors at a NEON site just outside Gainesville, Florida. Webb had worked with similar instruments in Alaska while earning her master’s degree in biology, and thought her new job “would be a great opportunity to learn new things with a different setup.” Instead, Webb says, her bosses discouraged her from showing any initiative or using her knowledge to help the fledgling project. “Someone without a college education could have done my job,” she says. For example, Webb says it took a month and several sign-offs to get approval to remove a wasp’s nest hanging from the site’s flux tower. In contrast, Webb says that she could have solved the problem with bug spray from Home Depot. Webb quit after 5 months and now works as an outreach and facilities coordinator at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Gainesville. “I really like the idea of NEON, but it’s not working,” she says. Webb “was one of my best students,” says ecologist Edward Schuur, a one-time NEON adviser who recently moved to Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff. “If NEON can’t retain people of her caliber, then something is seriously wrong with the organization.” Todd Dawson, chair of NEON’s top scientific advisory panel, goes further. “I wouldn’t encourage a young person to apply for a NEON job now,” says the University of California, Berkeley, academic. “It’s a sad commentary. But I want to know their plans for righting the ship, and then see some real progress in achieving them, before I would advise anyone to work there.”
Ollinger’s experience reflects management problems that have dogged NEON since its birth and the project’s tense relationship with the community of scientists who will ultimately use its data. This summer those problems came home to roost.
On 3 August, NSF abruptly announced it was scaling back the project in an attempt to prevent an 18-month slip in its schedule and a projected cost overrun of more than $80 million on its $434 million construction budget (Science, 7 August, p. 574). On 8 September, NEON Inc., the nonprofit that manages the project, fired CEO Russ Lea, a former forestry professor and university administrator, after the head of NSF’s biology directorate, James Olds, ordered the corporation to correct “deficiencies in leadership.” And last week Olds told a congressional committee investigating what has gone wrong that NSF would consider replacing NEON Inc. if it doesn’t shape up.
NSF officials say NEON’s “descoping” was prompted by ongoing difficulties in obtaining needed site permits and technical challenges in building NEON’s sensors, some of which take novel approaches to collecting data. NEON’s supporters note that other large, complex science projects that NSF has built have undergone periodic changes in scope and leadership, particularly as they transition from construction to operations. And NEON has been especially challenging because of its complexity and uniqueness, Olds says.
But scientists both inside and outside of NEON say the project’s woes run much deeper. They point to a chronic disharmony among NSF, NEON Inc., and the research community. Ollinger, for instance, is one of five researchers who has held—and then left—NEON’s top scientific post since 2007. This past spring, members of NEON’s chief scientific advisory body even considered a mass resignation.
Now, as NEON regroups, the scientists with whom it has had a love/hate relationship say NSF and NEON Inc. need to turn things around, and fast. “I wish them luck,” says Scott Collins, a plant biologist at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, who helped get NEON off the ground as an NSF program manager in the early 2000s. “They need to wake up and change the way NEON operates and get the research community behind the project,” he says. “NSF has invested a ton of money in the infrastructure,” he adds, “and if NEON fails, ecology won’t get another chance.”
When then-NSF director Rita Colwell proposed what became NEON in 2000, she hoped that it would generate questions researchers had never been able to ask—or answer. Although the agency had been funding Long-Term Ecological Research sites across the United States since 1980, those projects tended to focus on hypothesis-driven research by an individual investigator. They weren’t designed to collect and share highly standardized, continental-scale data over many decades.
The move into Big Data is an intoxicating vision to many. “The idea of a community of ecologists coming together to put up a piece of infrastructure as significant as a telescope, atom smasher, or an icebreaker sucked me in,” Lea said last month, explaining why he took the CEO job in early 2012.
It took NEON’s planners a decade and several tries, however, to draw a blueprint acceptable to NSF’s oversight body and Congress. The final plan called for dividing the United States into 20 ecological domains (see map below). Each domain would host two “core” observing stations chock-full of standardized sensors and sampling sites (see graphic, below). One core site would focus on a terrestrial ecosystem such as a forest or grassland, the other on an aquatic environment such as a stream or lake. In addition, the domains would support a total of 56 “relocatable” stations that researchers could move a few times during the 30-plus years that NEON is expected to operate. The original plan also included a long-term experiment, called STREON (STReam Experimental Observatory Network), which would simulate abrupt environmental change in aquatic ecosystems by adding nutrients—phosphates and nitrogen—and removing some organisms at 10 sites.
NEON takes shape Scientists will be collecting information from both terrestrial and aquatic sites located in each of 20 distinct ecosystems, called domains. All Aquatic sites Terrestrial sites All Core sites Relocatable sites Descoped sites Descoped urban sites Show domains Alaska Hawaii Puerto Rico Notes: Map of core aquatic sites includes eight sites that were to host the now-canceled STREON experiment. There are two core aquatic sites in Florida (Domain 3, Southeast). There is no core aquatic site in Domain 20 (Hawaii). Map includes a planned core terrestrial and a planned relocatable terrestrial site in California (Domain 17, Pacific Southwest).
Since 2011, project managers have completed construction on 48 sites—fewer than half of what was in the original plan—and spent approximately two-thirds of NEON’s construction budget. The descoping preserves the 40 core sites, but eliminates 15 of the 56 relocatable sites— including seven dedicated to studying urban ecosystems. NEON also pulled the plug on two terrestrial instruments: sensors to measure fluxes of nitrogen oxides and methane, and fiber optic cables for collecting video of underground root growth. And it dropped the STREON experiment (although NSF officials emphasized that they would welcome new STREON-like proposals to another NSF funding program).
The loss of STREON was the latest defeat for aquatic scientists, who had long been unhappy with what they regarded as NEON’s inattention to its river and lake sites. In June, several prominent scientists petitioned NEON to invest more in completing the aquatic observatories. Sensing that STREON was in danger, they also asked to be consulted on any decision to drop STREON.
NEON managers rebuffed both requests, saying that “we cannot make one component of the observatory a higher priority than others.” But the descoping does exactly that, argues ecologist Walter Dodds of Kansas State University, Manhattan, who organized the petition and who has championed STREON. “It’s terrible news for aquatic scientists.”
It’s not unusual for a federal agency to adjust its plans for a major scientific facility, such as a telescope or spacecraft, after construction is underway. But those changes are usually the product of discussions between scientists and project managers. On a typical NASA mission, for instance, “the job of the chief scientist is to understand the high-level science requirements of the mission and to engage in respectful conflict with the project manager to make sure that the best outcome occurs,” says David Schimel, NEON’s first CEO and later its first chief scientist. “They succeed or fail together.”
That give-and-take has not been the norm at NEON, Schimel and others say. In late 2007, for example, geophysicist Michael Keller left his job as a project scientist for a NASA-funded program in the Amazon, bought a house in Boulder, and moved his family in preparation for what he expected to be the crowning achievement of his career: chief of science at NEON. “We had a golden dream that was going to make this incredibly difficult thing happen,” he recalls. “That idealism was our calling card.”
Keller’s first task was to reach a consensus on the scientific requirements for the observatory. “Then we converted those questions into what we were going to measure and how we would report them as products” that scientists could use, he says. The result, he says, was “a very respectable final design.”
That’s when things headed south. “We fully expected to have to adapt what we were doing on a site-by-site basis,” Keller recalls. But that’s not how NSF saw things. “NSF’s model is that you do the science up front,” he says. “And once you come up with the final design, it’s up to the project manager to execute it.” The message from NSF was clear, he says: “Once we had designed it, [scientists] were somewhat obsolete.”
Ollinger says that approach may work well when building a single large facility with a clear and compelling scientific objective—he calls it a “north star”. But NEON lacks that north star, he says. Instead, its fundamental objective is to generate high-quality data that scientists will use to answer a wide array of questions.
After about 3 years at NEON, Keller “decided it was probably time for me to move on.” In late 2010 he returned to Brazil to manage a sustainable development project funded by the United States and Brazilian governments.
Keller was succeeded by the man who had hired him: Schimel. A biogeochemist who has been a tireless advocate for NEON, Schimel initially tried to recruit people who understood both ecology and what it takes to build a large scientific facility—before realizing that those two cultures rarely overlap. “It was difficult to find ecologists with experience in large projects,” Schimel says. “It was equally hard to find engineers and project managers with experience in ecology. And by difficult I mean impossible—they didn’t exist.”
Even so, Schimel says he’s proud of the team he assembled during his 5 years at NEON. But eventually he was also pushed aside. “My science role was being increasingly marginalized,” he recalls. “I was losing the authority and access to the systems engineering staff and other expertise I needed to do my job.” Schimel left NEON in 2012 to join NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where he’s analyzing global carbon data.
Next up was Ollinger, whose year at NEON was equally disheartening. Ollinger found out that he didn’t have the promised authority to make sure that sensors passed muster before they went live at a site. Nor was he allowed to create career paths for NEON’s growing staff of scientists, who could never get a straight answer from project managers about whether they would continue to have jobs once NEON was running (see sidebar, p. 1441). A third role that Ollinger relished—figuring out how outside scientists would access NEON’s data—was impossible to fulfill, he says, because “the data weren’t flowing.”
Ollinger’s successor as observatory director, C. J. Loria, lasted just 4 months. A former Navy test pilot hired for his business acumen, Loria was ousted this past winter at the same time that NEON Inc. eliminated the position of observatory director.
The churn has deepened the rift between scientists and the project by creating a “lack of a scientific presence” at the Boulder headquarters, Lea admitted before his departure. “The community wants a mano-a-mano relationship with a strong scientific leader at NEON on a daily basis,” he said. “Scientists want to talk to their peers.”
Lea’s interim replacement as CEO is Eugene Kelly, a soil scientist at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, who only this summer was hired to be NEON’s visiting chief scientist. Kelly agrees that the research community “feels it has been kept in the dark about NEON for many years.” The low point in NEON’s relationship with the ecology community may have come this past winter, when members of its principal advisory panel, the Science, Technology and Educational Advisory Committee (STEAC), seriously considered disbanding the group.
STEAC “made several explicit recommendations over the years, and those recommendations were either ignored or opposed,” explains the panel’s chair, integrative biologist Todd Dawson of the University of California, Berkeley. “People were saying, ‘There’s no point having an advisory committee if [NEON] is not going to use it.’”
James Collins, chair of NEON’s board of directors, agrees that top management has historically shown a disregard for what scientists can bring to the project, and says that attitude must change. A biology professor at Arizona State University, Tempe, who helped get NEON off the ground as head of NSF’s biology directorate in the late 2000s, Collins says the board expects the next CEO to take a different approach. “The CEO has to set a tone in which people feel they are being treated well and their contributions are valued,” he says.
How NEON will work NEON will use a standardized suite of autonomous instruments and data collection protocols at dozens of terrestrial and aquatic sites to monitor long-term, continental trends in climate, land use, biodiversity, and invasive species. Core sites are expected to operate for 30+ years; relocatable sites would move every 8-10 years. Sites vary in size, the largest being a 500 sq km swath of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Tap to read more Towers Towers as tall as 60 meters will provide a platform for sensors, operating at different wavelengths, which will measure sunlight, carbon flux, and a host of atmospheric and meteorological parameters at distances up to 1500 m. A camera at the apex will record seasonal changes and snow depth every 15 minutes. Soil sampling A string of sensors up to 200 m long and buried 2 m in the soil will monitor changes in temperature, nutrient movements, and carbon dioxide. Utility hut A 6-by-2.5-meter utility hut, 3 meter high, stores scientific equipment and houses computer and communications gear with fiber optic, cellular, or satellite connections. Also contains battery back-up if power grid fails. On the water A suite of instruments, including a buoy in middle of lake, will periodically measure various chemical and physical attributes. Other sampling protocols will track changes in populations of microbes, algae, invertebrates, and fish. On shore Sensors will record the movement of ground water and collect various meteorological and hydrological data.
Relations between NEON Inc. and NSF also need to improve, say scientists both within and outside the project. The funding delay that sabotaged Ollinger, for example, was the result of a festering disagreement over when a site is ready to be commissioned.
It’s not a minor issue. NEON managers argue that a site should be considered operational once all the equipment works and the instruments start to generate data. Any delay in commissioning, they note, forces NEON to use construction dollars for operating costs, such as power and maintenance. That leaves less money to complete new sites.
NSF’s position, however, is that a site cannot be commissioned until its data are available online, says Elizabeth Blood, the agency’s longtime project manager for NEON. That process could add months to the commissioning process, she concedes, adding that NSF has no intention of changing its criteria.
NSF has the authority to decide the issue. But NEON’s position got a strong endorsement this past July from a high-powered panel of scientists from both inside and outside the project, which reviewed NEON’s future shortly before NSF announced the descoping. Some of NEON’s cost overruns were due to “delayed transition to operations,” the panel concluded. Its recommendation was unequivocal: “The cost of carrying field operations on the construction project is unjustified,” and NSF needed to start paying the operating costs.
Even NEON’s critics are willing to cut NSF some slack, however, because they recognize that the foundation has little political margin for error. The Republican-led science committee in the U.S. House of Representatives has repeatedly questioned whether NSF has been a proper steward of taxpayer dollars, and NEON’s missteps have provided some ammunition for those attacks. In recent months the committee has held hearings to berate NSF officials for allowing NEON Inc. to use $150,000 of its management fees on what the agency later admitted were inappropriate activities, including a Christmas party.
Tragic end for Puerto Rico site By Jeffrey Mervis For many of the National Ecological Observatory Network’s (NEON’s) 80-plus monitoring sites, getting the necessary permits to begin construction was the biggest hurdle. But one site in Puerto Rico was undone by tragedy. This past spring, two security guards were gunned down at what was to have been a “relocatable,” or movable, site in a village near Ponce. In June, NEON took down the nearly complete installation after deciding that the site, known as Mameyes, was too dangerous. “The community said they wanted us to stay, but they couldn’t guarantee our safety,” says Russ Lea, who this month stepped down as NEON’s CEO. “They haven’t captured those responsible for the murders … so … the decision was clear.” The local contractor had hired armed guards after construction material started disappearing from Mameyes, making it NEON’s only guarded site. In the predawn hours of 30 April, the guards were shot dead. Local authorities have declined to discuss the status of the investigation. Although it pales next to the human tragedy, Lea says shuttering Mameyes meant abandoning a site that had required incredible resourcefulness by NEON managers. After a landslide in 1985 killed 130 people and destroyed the barrio, the remaining houses were bulldozed, and a dry forest grew up through the rubble. That history posed a special challenge to those installing the tower and monitoring equipment. “The engineering skill needed to put that urban site into a rubble field, and not disturb the key environmental components, is a testament to what NEON is capable of achieving,” Lea says. “And then having to pull it all out—it breaks me up just to think about it.” There’s also a loss to science, as Mameyes represents a unique ecosystem within an urban setting.
Last week, the panel grilled the agency on its oversight of the entire project, and Olds made it clear that the corporation is on shaky ground. “By December 1 NSF will have enough information to make a determination as to whether NEON Inc. has made sufficient improvement to successfully complete construction,” Olds told the panel. Pressed by one legislator whether that could mean replacing the current contractor, Olds hemmed and hawed before concluding, “Yes, that is an option.”
NSF has already shortened the leash. Olds said NSF is taking a closer look at the project’s financial books, and an advisory committee to the biology directorate is examining whether the descoping will affect NEON’s scientific goals. The National Science Board, NSF’s oversight body, has formed a NEON task force. Olds was also critical of NSF’s performance to date. “We could have done a better job,” he admitted.
Despite its many problems, NEON has made considerable progress. Managers said last month that 33 sites in 15 domains are now ready for operations. By September 2016, Lea predicts it will have “upward of 60% of final capability” at the 81 sites currently planned. The final goal, he says, is “100% of capability by the end of 2017.”
Getting to 100%, however, will require NEON to fully resolve longstanding permitting problems. NEON doesn’t own any of its sites, so before it can do any work it must obtain the permission of the landowner—whether a federal or state agency, an environmental nonprofit, a university, or private individuals. Construction also has to go through numerous environmental reviews. It all has taken much longer than anyone anticipated. “We’ve needed probably five to 10 times more permits than was originally thought,” Lea says. “It’s become a huge drain on time and resources.”
A tower studded with sensors keeps watch at a NEON core terrestrial site near Front Royal, Virginia.
STREON posed an especially high permitting hurdle that NEON never cleared. “Dropping pollutants into a reach of streams for 30 years was a hard thing for most people to swallow,” Lea says.
NEON officials also have had to deal with everything from protests by local residents to a pair of murders that ultimately doomed an urban site in Puerto Rico (see sidebar, p. 1440). In Hawaii and Alaska, the permitting process has been so problematic that this past summer NSF officials proposed dropping those two states, plus Puerto Rico, from NEON. Scientists reacted with horror, pointing out that Hawaii alone provides 25% of the climate variability across NEON sites and that, together, the three locales double the amount of biodiversity being monitored. The idea, which NSF’s Blood says was simply a trial balloon, was eventually abandoned.
The descoping offers outside scientists a golden opportunity to reconnect with the project, Kelly says. Last month the Ecological Society of America issued a supportive letter from 16 present and past presidents. “We remain excited about the potential new science that could emerge” from NEON, they wrote, asking NSF and NEON Inc. “to re-engage with the ecological community.”
But NEON board chair Collins acknowledges that the project’s checkered history means it has a lot of ground to make up. “It still needs to prove itself to the community,” he says. |
def wrap(funcname, restype, argtypes):
func = getattr(obsffi, funcname)
func.restype = restype
func.argtypes = argtypes
globals()["g_" + funcname] = func |
<filename>stx-btree-0.9/speedtest/speedtest-tune.cc<gh_stars>100-1000
/*
* STX B+ Tree Speed Test Program v0.9
* Copyright (C) 2008-2013 <NAME>
*
* This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it
* under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
* Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option)
* any later version.
*
* This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
* ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
* FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for
* more details.
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
* this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
*/
#include <string>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/time.h>
#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>
#include <stx/btree_multiset.h>
#include <assert.h>
// *** Settings
/// maximum number of items to insert
const unsigned int insertnum = 1024000 * 32;
const int randseed = 34234235;
/// b+ tree binsearch_threshold range to test
const int min_nodeslots = 564;
const int max_nodeslots = 564;
/// Time is measured using gettimeofday()
inline double timestamp()
{
struct timeval tv;
gettimeofday(&tv, NULL);
return tv.tv_sec + tv.tv_usec * 0.000001;
}
/// Traits used for the speed tests, BTREE_DEBUG is not defined.
template <typename KeyType, int _bs_slots>
struct btree_traits_speed : public stx::btree_default_set_traits<KeyType>
{
static const int binsearch_threshold = _bs_slots;
};
/// Test the B+ tree with a specific leaf/inner slots (only insert)
template <int Slots>
struct Test_BtreeSet_Insert
{
typedef stx::btree_multiset<unsigned int, std::less<unsigned int>,
btree_traits_speed<unsigned int, Slots> > btree_type;
Test_BtreeSet_Insert(unsigned int) {}
void run(unsigned int insertnum)
{
btree_type bt;
srand(randseed);
for(unsigned int i = 0; i < insertnum; i++)
bt.insert( rand() );
assert( bt.size() == insertnum );
}
};
/// Test the B+ tree with a specific leaf/inner slots (insert, find and delete)
template <int Slots>
struct Test_BtreeSet_InsertFindDelete
{
typedef stx::btree_multiset<unsigned int, std::less<unsigned int>,
struct btree_traits_speed<unsigned int, Slots> > btree_type;
Test_BtreeSet_InsertFindDelete(unsigned int) {}
void run(unsigned int insertnum)
{
btree_type bt;
srand(randseed);
for(unsigned int i = 0; i < insertnum; i++)
bt.insert(rand());
assert( bt.size() == insertnum );
srand(randseed);
for(unsigned int i = 0; i < insertnum; i++)
bt.exists(rand());
srand(randseed);
for(unsigned int i = 0; i < insertnum; i++)
bt.erase_one(rand());
assert(bt.empty());
}
};
/// Test the B+ tree with a specific leaf/inner slots (find only)
template <int Slots>
struct Test_BtreeSet_Find
{
typedef stx::btree_multiset<unsigned int, std::less<unsigned int>,
struct btree_traits_speed<unsigned int, Slots> > btree_type;
btree_type bt;
Test_BtreeSet_Find(unsigned int insertnum)
{
srand(randseed);
for(unsigned int i = 0; i < insertnum; i++)
bt.insert(rand());
assert( bt.size() == insertnum );
}
void run(unsigned int insertnum)
{
srand(randseed);
for(unsigned int i = 0; i < insertnum; i++)
bt.exists(rand());
}
};
unsigned int repeatuntil;
/// Repeat (short) tests until enough time elapsed and divide by the runs.
template <typename TestClass>
void testrunner_loop(std::ostream& os, unsigned int insertnum, unsigned int slots)
{
unsigned int runs = 0;
double ts1, ts2;
do
{
runs = 0; // count repetition of timed tests
{
TestClass test(insertnum); // initialize test structures
ts1 = timestamp();
for(unsigned int totaltests = 0; totaltests <= repeatuntil; totaltests += insertnum)
{
test.run(insertnum); // run timed test procedure
++runs;
}
ts2 = timestamp();
}
std::cerr << "insertnum=" << insertnum << " slots=" << slots << " repeat=" << (repeatuntil / insertnum) << " time=" << (ts2 - ts1) << "\n";
// discard and repeat if test took less than one second.
if ((ts2 - ts1) < 1.0) repeatuntil *= 2;
}
while ((ts2 - ts1) < 1.0);
os << std::fixed << std::setprecision(10) << insertnum << " " << slots << " " << ((ts2 - ts1) / runs) << std::endl;
}
// Template magic to emulate a for_each slots. These templates will roll-out
// btree instantiations for each of the Low-High leaf/inner slot numbers.
template< template<int Slots> class functional, int Low, int High>
struct test_range
{
inline void operator()(std::ostream& os, unsigned int insertnum)
{
testrunner_loop< functional<Low> >(os, insertnum, Low);
test_range<functional, Low+8, High>()(os, insertnum);
}
};
template< template<int Slots> class functional, int Low>
struct test_range<functional, Low, Low>
{
inline void operator()(std::ostream& os, unsigned int insertnum)
{
testrunner_loop< functional<Low> >(os, insertnum, Low);
}
};
/// Speed test them!
int main()
{
/*
{ // Set - speed test only insertion
std::ofstream os("tune-set-insert.txt");
std::cerr << "set: insert " << insertnum << "\n";
repeatuntil = insertnum;
test_range<Test_BtreeSet_Insert, min_nodeslots, max_nodeslots>()(os, insertnum);
}
{ // Set - speed test insert, find and delete
std::ofstream os("tune-set-all.txt");
std::cerr << "set: insert, find, delete " << insertnum << "\n";
repeatuntil = insertnum;
test_range<Test_BtreeSet_InsertFindDelete, min_nodeslots, max_nodeslots>()(os, insertnum);
}
*/
{ // Set - speed test find only
std::ofstream os("tune-set-find.txt");
std::cerr << "set: find " << insertnum << "\n";
repeatuntil = insertnum;
test_range<Test_BtreeSet_Find, min_nodeslots, max_nodeslots>()(os, insertnum);
}
return 0;
}
|
/**
* This class includes a small subset of standard GATT attributes for demonstration purposes.
*/
public class SampleGattAttributes {
private static HashMap<String, String> attributes = new HashMap();
public static String HEART_RATE_MEASUREMENT = "00002a37-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb";
public static String CLIENT_CHARACTERISTIC_CONFIG = "00002902-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb";
public static String BUTTON_STATUS = "f000ac01-0451-4000-b000-000000000000";
static {
// Define the UUIDs of the services that your bluetooth device exposes
attributes.put("0000180d-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb", "Heart Rate Service");
attributes.put("0000180a-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb", "Device Information Service");
attributes.put("00001800-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb", "Service 1");
attributes.put("00001801-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb", "Service 2");
attributes.put("0000ffe0-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb", "Service 3");
attributes.put("f000aa64-0451-4000-b000-000000000000", "Service 4");
attributes.put("f000ccc0-0451-4000-b000-000000000000", "Service 5");
attributes.put("f000ac00-0451-4000-b000-000000000000", "Button Service");
attributes.put("f000ffc0-0451-4000-b000-000000000000", "Service 7");
// Added the Smart Bandage Characteristic UUIDs
attributes.put("0000f0f0-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb", "Smart Bandage Service");
attributes.put("0000f0f1-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb", "Temperature Value");
attributes.put("0000f0f2-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb", "Humidity Value");
attributes.put("0000f0f3-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb", "Bandage ID");
attributes.put("0000f0f4-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb", "Bandage State");
attributes.put("0000f0f5-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb", "Battery Charge");
attributes.put("0000f0f6-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb", "External Power");
attributes.put("0000f0f7-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb", "Moisture Map");
attributes.put("0000f0f8-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb", "System Time");
// Define the UUIDs of the characteristics for your bluetooth device
attributes.put(BUTTON_STATUS, "Button Status");
attributes.put(HEART_RATE_MEASUREMENT, "Heart Rate Measurement");
attributes.put("00002a29-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb", "Manufacturer Name String");
}
public static String lookup(String uuid, String defaultName) {
String name = attributes.get(uuid);
return name == null ? defaultName : name;
}
} |
Rider reported factors influencing choice of stirrup length in dressage, showjumping and eventing, and para equestrianism The main functions of a saddle are to improve rider stability and comfort, with the stirrups providing support for the riders legs. The criteria upon which riders base their choice of stirrup length for different equestrian disciplines does not appear to have been reported. Therefore, this study was designed to investigate the factors that play a role in a riders choice of stirrup length for different equestrian and para-equestrian disciplines. An online questionnaire consisting of open and closed demographic questions, and 28 Likert scale questions related to factors which are anecdotally associated with stirrup length was distributed via social media horse pages. Respondents were asked to identify factors that influenced their decision making when setting their stirrup length in dressage, showjumping and eventing (dressage, showjumping and cross-country phases). 2,183 participants took part in this study, the majority were female (97%; n=2,131). 8% of the sample (n=184) categorised themselves as para-equestrians. Most respondents (n=1,200) identified themselves as dressage riders (amateur: 89%, n=1,068; professional: 11%, n=132), 665 riders engaged in showjumping (amateur: 87%, n=579; professional: 13%, n=86) and a further 393 riders selected eventing as their primary discipline (amateur: 89%, n= 350; professional: 11%, n=43). All riders consistently ranked feel of stirrups once mounted, how stable stirrups feel once moving and type of saddle being used as the three most important factors when deciding stirrup length across the disciplines. Dressage riders were more greatly influenced by the factors investigated when setting stirrup length then either showjumping or event riders (Kruskal Wallis: P<0.04). For eventing participants, exercise type, safety, saddle type and rider stability were key factors influencing stirrup length selection between different phases of the competition. These factors were generally ranked as more important for the dressage/flatwork phase compared to showjumping or cross country schooling (Kruskal Wallis: P<0.01). Stirrup length is likely to affect rider comfort, performance and safety while having relatively less effect on the horses well-being, therefore it is not surprising that riders from all disciplines placed high emphasis on factors related to the rider and saddle. |
The exemplary embodiment relates to fields of image processing. It finds particular application in connection with the provision of a user interface for implementing riffling in an electronic reading device, and is described with particular reference thereto. However, a more general application can be appreciated with regards to image classification, image content analysis, image archiving, image database management and searching, and so forth.
As electronic reading devices or e-readers become popular, much of the “feel” of a book is still desired. There are many different advantages a person may have to owning a paper or a hard back copy of a book. For example, a feeling of ownership, tangible feel, security of presence are just a few of the reasons why books in physical form have yet to ring in their death knell, and thus, make way for a pure electronic book age. Physical books are all around us, such as in stores, libraries and in our homes. Although, electronic books housed in electronic reading devices are quickly populating our surroundings. The benefits of such a trend are many and range from saving trees and chemicals necessary to print, glue and bind documents to benefits of easy transport, greater accessibility and an increase in manipulation capability.
As electronic devices fill our pockets and more storage devices fill their memories, we accessorize and make readily available all aspects of our world, including books, journals, magazines, articles, and documents including text and graphic images to name just a few. One of the barriers to adoption of e-readers is that they do not adequately provide as pleasurable and familiar a feel as an actual book. Therefore, a need is present to provide an intuitive sense of a real book and how it works to an owner of an electronic novel or document having multiple pages. |
<gh_stars>1-10
import { useEffect, useState } from 'react';
import { getTaskComments } from 'adapters/task';
import { Comment } from 'adapters/comment';
import LoadingScreen from 'components/ui/LoadingScreen';
import CommentList from 'components/layout/CommentList';
interface Props {
taskId: string;
}
/**
* This is a tab of the task details page. It contains the list of all comments that belong to the
* task and gives the possibility to create new comments.
*/
export default function TaskComments({ taskId }: Props) {
const [comments, setComments] = useState<Comment[]>();
useEffect(() => {
getTaskComments(taskId).then(comments => {
setComments(comments.sort((a, b) => b.created.getTime() - a.created.getTime()));
});
}, [taskId])
return (
<div className="task-comment-list">
{
comments
? <CommentList comments={comments} taskId={taskId} />
: <LoadingScreen />
}
</div>
);
}
|
on •
LEXIE CANNES STATE OF TRANS — A post Thursday on Andrew Cray’s Facebook page brought the news that he passed away following an apparent second bout with cancer. By all accounts Cray was a selfless and tireless advocate for trans people and for many, the news was quite shocking, especially considering he was only 28.
Cray was most recently with American Progress as a Policy Analyst working to get the Affordable Care Act implemented by the states. Prior to that, he worked for the National Center for Transgender Equality on trans and LGBT health policies. At the National Coalition for LGBT Health, he worked to ensure the health needs of LGBT veterans were met.
Sarah McBride in Facebook:
“He had a warm heart up until the end, always putting the feelings and needs of others ahead of his own. He contributed more in his 28 years than most would ever dream of in 60 or 80. He loved and was loved. He befriended and mentored without regard for status or interest in gain. He gave others courage through the bravery he demonstrated; not just throughout his struggle with cancer over the last year, but also through the authenticity with which he lived his own life every day. Through his work, he helped open up health care to hundreds of thousands of LGBT Americans and spearheaded the national effort to ensure that transgender people can access the care they desperately need, but are too often denied.”
Full text: https://www.facebook.com/andrew.cray.71
Related: https://www.facebook.com/sarah.mcbride.98
http://transgenderequality.wordpress.com/2014/08/30/andy-cray-and-his-lifes-work/
——-
Watch LEXIE CANNES right now: http://www.amazon.com/Lexie-Cannes-CourtneyODonnell/dp/B00KEYH3LQ Or get the DVD: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0963781332
LEXIE CANNES STATE OF TRANS is associated with Wipe Out Transphobia: http://www.wipeouttransphobia.com/ Read Lexie Cannes in The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/courtney-odonnell/
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Categories: Deaths, Murder, Discrimination, Equality, Civil Rights, Transgender, Transsexual, Trans |
// NewHexSetSingleton creates a new HexSet containing a single HexCoord.
func NewHexSetSingleton(p HexCoord) *HexSet {
rv := NewHexSet()
rv.Add(p)
return rv
} |
Long-term effectiveness of computer-generated tailored patient education on benzodiazepines: a randomized controlled trial. AIMS Chronic benzodiazepine use is highly prevalent and is associated with a variety of negative health consequences. The present study examined the long-term effectiveness of a tailored patient education intervention on benzodiazepine use. DESIGN A randomized controlled trial was conducted comprising three arms, comparing (i) a single tailored intervention; (ii) a multiple tailored intervention and (iii) a general practitioner letter. The post-test took place after 12 months. PARTICIPANTS Five hundred and eight patients using benzodiazepines were recruited by their general practitioners and assigned randomly to one of the three groups. INTERVENTION Two tailored interventions, the single tailored intervention (patients received one tailored letter) and the multiple tailored intervention (patients received three sequential tailored letters at intervals of 1 month), were compared to a short general practitioner letter that modelled usual care. The tailored interventions not only provided different and more information than the general practitioner letter; they were also personalized and adapted to individual baseline characteristics. The information in both tailored interventions was the same, but in the multiple tailored intervention the information was provided to the participants spread over three occasions. In the multiple tailored intervention, the second and the third tailored letters were based on short and standardized telephone interviews. MEASUREMENTS Benzodiazepine cessation at post-test was the outcome measure. FINDINGS The results showed that participants receiving the tailored interventions were twice as likely to have quit benzodiazepine use compared to the general practitioner letter. Particularly among participants with the intention to discontinue usage at baseline, both tailored interventions led to high percentages of those who actually discontinued usage (single tailored intervention 51.7%; multiple tailored intervention 35.6%; general practitioner letter 14.5%). CONCLUSIONS It was concluded that tailored patient education can be an effective tool for reducing benzodiazepine use, and can be implemented easily. |
Polynomial Interpretations over the Natural, Rational and Real Numbers Revisited Polynomial interpretations are a useful technique for proving termination of term rewrite systems. They come in various flavors: polynomial interpretations with real, rational and integer coefficients. As to their relationship with respect to termination proving power, Lucas managed to prove in 2006 that there are rewrite systems that can be shown polynomially terminating by polynomial interpretations with real (algebraic) coefficients, but cannot be shown polynomially terminating using polynomials with rational coefficients only. He also proved the corresponding statement regarding the use of rational coefficients versus integer coefficients. In this article we extend these results, thereby giving the full picture of the relationship between the aforementioned variants of polynomial interpretations. In particular, we show that polynomial interpretations with real or rational coefficients do not subsume polynomial interpretations with integer coefficients. Our results hold also for incremental termination proofs with polynomial interpretations. Introduction Polynomial interpretations are a simple yet useful technique for proving termination of term rewrite systems (TRSs, for short). While originally conceived in the late seventies by Lankford as a means for establishing direct termination proofs, polynomial interpretations are nowadays often used in the context of the dependency pair (DP) framework. In the classical approach of Lankford, one considers polynomials with integer coefficients inducing polynomial algebras over the well-founded domain of the natural numbers. To be precise, every n-ary function symbol f is interpreted by a polynomial P f in n indeterminates with integer coefficients, which induces a mapping or interpretation from terms to integer numbers in the obvious way. In order to conclude termination of a given TRS, three conditions have to be satisfied. First, every polynomial must be well-defined, i.e., it must induce a well-defined polynomial function f N : N n → N over the natural numbers. In addition, the interpretation functions f N are required to be strictly monotone in all arguments. Finally, 2 F. NEURAUTER AND A. MIDDELDORP terminating TRSs one has to show compatibility of the interpretation with the given TRS. More precisely, for every rewrite rule ℓ → r, the polynomial P ℓ associated with the left-hand side must be greater than P r, the corresponding polynomial of the right-hand side, i.e., P ℓ > P r for all values of the indeterminates. Already back in the seventies, an alternative approach using polynomials with real coefficients instead of integers was proposed by Dershowitz. However, as the real numbers R equipped with the standard order > R are not well-founded, a subterm property is explicitly required to ensure well-foundedness. It was not until 2005 that this limitation was overcome, when Lucas presented a framework for proving polynomial termination over the real numbers, where well-foundedness is basically achieved by replacing > R with a new ordering > R, requiring comparisons between terms to not be below a given positive real number. Moreover, this framework also facilitates polynomial interpretations over the rational numbers. Thus, one can distinguish three variants of polynomial interpretations, polynomial interpretations with real, rational and integer coefficients, and the obvious question is: what is their relationship with regard to termination proving power? For Knuth-Bendix orders it is known that extending the range of the underlying weight function from natural numbers to non-negative reals does not result in an increase in termination proving power. In 2006 Lucas proved that there are TRSs that can be shown polynomially terminating by polynomial interpretations with rational coefficients, but cannot be shown polynomially terminating using polynomials with integer coefficients only. Likewise, he proved that there are TRSs that can be handled by polynomial interpretations with real (algebraic) coefficients, but cannot be handled by polynomial interpretations with rational coefficients. In this article we extend these results and give a complete comparison between the various notions of polynomial termination. 1 In general, the situation turns out to be as depicted in Figure 1, which illustrates both our results and the earlier results of Lucas. In particular, we prove that polynomial interpretations with real coefficients subsume polynomial interpretations with rational coefficients. Moreover, we show that polynomial interpretations with real or rational coefficients do not subsume polynomial interpretations with integer coefficients by exhibiting the TRS R 1 in Section 4. Likewise, we prove that there are TRSs that can be shown terminating by polynomial interpretations with real coefficients as well as by polynomial interpretations with integer coefficients, but cannot be shown terminating using polynomials with rational coefficients only, by exhibiting the TRS R 2 in Section 5. The TRSs R 3 and R 4 can be found in Section 6. The remainder of this article is organized as follows. In Section 2, we introduce some preliminary definitions and terminology concerning polynomials and polynomial interpretations. In Section 3, we show that polynomial interpretations with real coefficients subsume polynomial interpretations with rational coefficients. We further show that for polynomial interpretations over the reals, it suffices to consider real algebraic numbers as interpretation domain. Section 4 is dedicated to showing that polynomial interpretations with real or rational coefficients do not subsume polynomial interpretations with integer coefficients. Then, in Section 5, we present a TRS that can be handled by a polynomial interpretation with real coefficients as well as by a polynomial interpretation with integer coefficients, but cannot be handled using polynomials with rational coefficients. In Section 6, we show that the relationships in Figure 1 remain true if incremental termination proofs with polynomial interpretations are considered. We conclude in Section 7. This paper is an extended version of, which contained the result of Section 4. The results in Sections 3, 5 and 6 are new. Preliminaries As usual, we denote by N, Z, Q and R the sets of natural, integer, rational and real numbers, respectively. An irrational number is a real number, which is not in Q. Given some D ∈ {N, Z, Q, R} and m ∈ D, > D denotes the standard order of the respective domain and D m := {x ∈ D | x m}. A sequence of real numbers (x n ) n∈N converges to the limit x if for every real number > 0 there exists a natural number N such that the absolute distance |x n − x| is less than for all n > N ; we denote this by lim n→∞ x n = x. As convergence in R k is equivalent to componentwise convergence, we use the same notation also for limits of converging sequences of vectors of real numbers ( x n ∈ R k ) n∈N. A real function f : R k → R is continuous in R k if for every converging sequence ( x n ∈ R k ) n∈N it holds that lim n→∞ f ( x n ) = f (lim n→∞ x n ). Finally, as Q is dense in R, every real number is a rational number or the limit of a converging sequence of rational numbers. Polynomials. For any ring R (e.g. Z, Q, R), we denote the associated polynomial ring in n indeterminates x 1,..., x n by R, the elements of which are finite sums of products of the form c x i 1 1 x i 2 2 x in n, where the coefficient c is an element of R and the exponents i 1,..., i n in the monomial x i 1 1 x i 2 2 x in n are non-negative integers. If c = 0, we call a product c x i 1 1 x i 2 2 x in n a term. The degree of a monomial is just the sum of its exponents, and the degree of a term is the degree of its monomial. An element P ∈ R is called an (n-variate) polynomial with coefficients in R. For example, the polynomial 2x 2 − x + 1 is an element of Z, the ring of all univariate polynomials with integer coefficients. In the special case n = 1, a polynomial P ∈ R can be written as follows:. For the largest k such that a k = 0, we call a k x k the leading term of P, a k its leading coefficient and k its degree, which we denote by deg(P ) = k. A polynomial P ∈ R is said to be linear if deg(P ) = 1, and quadratic if deg(P ) = 2. Polynomial Interpretations. We assume familiarity with the basics of term rewriting and polynomial interpretations (e.g. ). The key concept for establishing (direct) termination of TRSs via polynomial interpretations is the notion of well-founded monotone algebras as they induce reduction orders on terms. Definition 2.1. Let F be a signature, i.e., a set of function symbols equipped with fixed arities. An F-algebra A consists if a non-empty carrier set A and a collection of interpretation functions f A : A n → A for each n-ary function symbol f ∈ F. The evaluation or interpretation A (t) of a term t ∈ T (F, V) with respect to a variable assignment : V → A is inductively defined as follows: for all a 1,..., a n, b ∈ A. It is said to be monotone with respect to ⊐ if it is monotone in all its arguments. We define s In order to pave the way for incremental polynomial termination in Section 6, the following definition is more general than what is needed for direct termination proofs. Definition 2.2. Let (A, >, ) be an F-algebra together with two binary relations > and on A. We say that (A, >, ) and a TRS R are (weakly) compatible if ℓ > A r (ℓ A r) for each rewrite rule ℓ → r ∈ R. An interpretation function f A is called strictly (weakly) monotone if it is monotone with respect to > ( ). The triple (A, >, ) (or just A if > and are clear from the context) is a weakly (strictly) monotone F-algebra if > is well-founded, > ⊆ > and for each f ∈ F, f A is weakly (strictly) monotone. It is said to be an extended monotone F-algebra if it is both weakly monotone and strictly monotone. Finally, we call (A, >, ) a well-founded monotone A-algebra if > is a well-founded order on A, is its reflexive closure, and each interpretation function is strictly monotone. It is well-known that well-founded monotone algebras provide a complete characterization of termination. Definition 2.4. A polynomial interpretation over N for a signature F consists of a polynomial f N ∈ Z for every n-ary function symbol f ∈ F such that for all f ∈ F the following two properties are satisfied: well-definedness: f N (x 1,..., x n ) ∈ N for all x 1,..., x n ∈ N, strict monotonicity of f N in all arguments with respect to > N, the standard order on N. Due to well-definedness, each of the polynomials f N induces a function from N n to N. Hence, the pair N = (N, {f N } f ∈F ) constitutes an F-algebra over the carrier N. Now (N, > N, N ) where N is the reflexive closure of > N constitutes a well-founded monotone algebra, and we say that a polynomial interpretation over N is compatible with a TRS R if the wellfounded monotone algebra (N, > N, N ) is compatible with R. Finally, a TRS is polynomially terminating over N if it admits a compatible polynomial interpretation over N. In the sequel, we often identify a polynomial interpretation with its associated Falgebra. Remark 2.5. In principle, one could take any set N m (or even Z m ) instead of N as the carrier for polynomial interpretations. However, it is well-known that all these sets are order-isomorphic to N and hence do not change the class of polynomially terminating TRSs. In other words, a TRS R is polynomially terminating over N if and only if it is polynomially terminating over N m. Thus, we can restrict to N as carrier without loss of generality. The following simple criterion for strict monotonicity of a univariate quadratic polynomial will be used in Sections 4 and 5. Lemma 2.6. The quadratic polynomial f N (x) = ax 2 + bx + c with a, b, c ∈ Z is strictly monotone and well-defined if and only if a > 0, c 0, and a + b > 0. Now if one wants to extend the notion of polynomial interpretations to the rational or real numbers, the main problem one is confronted with is the non-well-foundedness of these domains with respect to the standard orders > Q and > R. In, this problem is overcome by replacing these orders with new non-total orders > R, and > Q,, the first of which is defined as follows: given some fixed positive real number, Analogously, one defines > Q, on Q. Thus, > R, (> Q, ) is well-founded on subsets of R (Q) that are bounded from below. Therefore, any set R m (Q m ) could be used as carrier for polynomial interpretations over R (Q). However, without loss of generality we may restrict to R 0 (Q 0 ) because the main argument of Remark 2.5 also applies to polynomials over R (Q), as is already mentioned in. Definition 2.7. A polynomial interpretation over R for a signature F consists of a polynomial f R ∈ R for every n-ary function symbol f ∈ F and some positive real number > 0 such that f R is well-defined over R 0, i.e., f R (x 1,..., x n ) ∈ R 0 for all x 1,..., x n ∈ R 0. Analogously, one defines polynomial interpretations over Q by the obvious adaptation of the definition above. Let D ∈ {Q, R}. As for polynomial interpretations over N, the pair D = (D 0, {f D } f ∈F ) constitutes an F-algebra over the carrier D 0 due to the well-definedness of all interpretation functions. Together with > D 0, and D 0, the restrictions of > D, and D to D 0, we obtain an algebra (D, Hence, if for each f ∈ F, f D is weakly (strictly) monotone, that is, monotone with respect to D 0 (> D 0, ), then (D, > D 0,, D 0 ) is a weakly (strictly) monotone F-algebra. However, unlike for polynomial interpretations over N, strict monotonicity of (D, > D 0,, D 0 ) does not entail weak monotonicity as it can very well be the case that an interpretation function is monotone with respect to > D 0, but not with respect to D 0. Definition 2.8. Let D ∈ {Q, R}. A polynomial interpretation over D is said to be weakly (strictly) monotone if the algebra (D, > D 0,, D 0 ) is weakly (strictly) monotone. Similarly, we say that a polynomial interpretation over D is (weakly) compatible with a TRS R if the algebra (D, > D 0,, D 0 ) is (weakly) compatible with R. Finally, a TRS R is polynomially terminating over D if there exists a polynomial interpretation over D that is both compatible with R and strictly monotone. We conclude this section with a more useful characterization of monotonicity with respect to the orders > R 0, and > Q 0, than the one obtained by specializing Definition 2.2. To this end, we note that a function f : R n 0 → R 0 is strictly monotone in its i-th argument with respect to > R 0, if and only if f (x 1,..., x i + h,..., x n ) − f (x 1,..., x i,..., x n ) R for all x 1,..., x n, h ∈ R 0 with h R. From this and from the analogous characterization of > Q 0, -monotonicity, it is easy to derive the following lemmata, which will be used in Sections 5 and 6. Lemma 2.9. For D ∈ {Q, R} and ∈ D 0 with > 0, the linear polynomial f D (x 1,..., x n ) = a n x n + + a 1 x 1 + a 0 in D is monotone in all arguments with respect to > D 0, and well-defined if and only if a 0 0 and a i 1 for all i ∈ {1,..., n}. In the remainder of this article we will sometimes use the term "polynomial interpretations with integer coefficients" as a synonym for polynomial interpretations over N. Likewise, the term "polynomial interpretations with real (rational) coefficients" refers to polynomial interpretations over R (Q). Remark 2.11. Lucas considers a different definition of polynomial termination over R (Q). He allows an arbitrary subset A ⊆ R (A ⊆ Q) as interpretation domain, provided it is bounded from below and unbounded from above. The definition of well-definedness is modified accordingly. According to his definition, polynomial termination over N trivially implies polynomial interpretations over R (and Q) since one can take A = N ⊆ R and = 1, in which case the induced order > A, is the same as the standard order on N. Our definitions are based on the understanding that the interpretation domain together with the underlying order determine whether one speaks of polynomial interpretations over the reals, rationals, or integers. As a consequence, several of the new results obtained in this paper do not hold in the setting of. Polynomial Termination over the Reals vs. the Rationals In this section we show that polynomial termination over Q implies polynomial termination over R. The proof is based upon the fact that polynomials induce continuous functions, whose behavior at irrational points is completely defined by the values they take at rational points. Proof. Let x = (x 1,..., x k ) ∈ R k 0 and let ( x n ) n∈N be a sequence of vectors of non-negative rational numbers x n ∈ Q k 0 whose limit is x. Such a sequence exists because Q k is dense in R k. Then by continuity of f. Thus, f ( x) is the limit of (f ( x n )) n∈N, which is a sequence of non-negative real numbers by assumption. Hence, f ( x) is non-negative, too. Theorem 3.2. If a TRS is polynomially terminating over Q, then it is also polynomially terminating over R. Proof. Let R be a TRS over the signature F that is polynomially terminating over Q. So there exists some polynomial interpretation I over Q consisting of a positive rational number and a polynomial f Q ∈ Q for every n-ary function symbol f ∈ F such that: for all n-ary f ∈ F, f Q (x 1,..., x n ) 0 for all x 1,..., x n ∈ Q 0, for all f ∈ F, f Q is strictly monotone with respect to > Q 0, in all arguments, for every rewrite rule ℓ → r ∈ R, P ℓ > Q 0, P r for all x 1,..., x m ∈ Q 0. Here P ℓ (P r ) denotes the polynomial associated with ℓ (r) and the variables x 1,..., x m are those occurring in ℓ → r. Next we note that all three conditions are quantified polynomial inequalities of the shape "P (x 1,..., x k ) 0 for all x 1,..., x k ∈ Q 0 " for some polynomial P with rational coefficients. This is easy to see for the first and third condition. As to the second condition, the function f Q is strictly monotone in its i-th argument with respect to > Q 0, if and only if f Q (x 1,..., for all x 1,..., x n, h ∈ Q 0. From Lemma 3.1 and the fact that polynomials induce continuous functions we infer that all these polynomial inequalities do not only hold in Q 0 but also in R 0. Hence, the polynomial interpretation I proves termination over R. Remark 3.3. Not only does the result established above show that polynomial termination over Q implies polynomial termination over R, but it even reveals that the same interpretation applies. We conclude this section by showing that for polynomial interpretations over R it suffices to consider real algebraic 2 numbers as interpretation domain. Concerning the use of real algebraic numbers in polynomial interpretations, in it is shown that it suffices to consider polynomials with real algebraic coefficients as interpretations of function symbols. Now the obvious question is whether it is also sufficient to consider only the (non-negative) real algebraic numbers R alg instead of the entire set R of real numbers as interpretation domain. We give an affirmative answer to this question by extending the result of. Proof. Let R be a TRS over the signature F that is polynomially terminating over R. There exists a positive real number and a polynomial f R ∈ R for every n-ary function symbol f ∈ F such that: for all f ∈ F, f R is strictly monotone with respect to > R 0, in all arguments, for every rewrite rule ℓ → r ∈ R, P ℓ > R 0, P r for all x 1,..., x m ∈ R 0. Next we treat as a variable and replace all coefficients of the polynomials in {f R | f ∈ F} by distinct variables c 1,..., c j. Thus, for each n-ary function symbol f ∈ F, its interpretation function is a parametric polynomial f R ∈ Z ⊆ Z, where all non-zero coefficients are 1. As a consequence, we claim that all three conditions listed above can be expressed as (conjunctions of) quantified polynomial inequalities of the shape p(x 1,..., x n, c 1,..., c j, ) 0 for all x 1,..., x n ∈ R 0 (3.1) for some polynomial p ∈ Z. This is easy to see for the first condition. For the third condition it is a direct consequence of the nature of the interpretation functions and the usual closure properties of polynomials. For the second condition we additionally need the fact that f R is strictly monotone in its i-th argument with respect to Now any of the quantified inequalities (3.1) can readily be expressed as a formula in the language of ordered fields with coefficients in Z, where c 1,..., c j and are the only free variables. By taking the conjunction of all these formulas, existentially quantifying and adding the conjunct > 0, we obtain a formula in the language of ordered fields with free variables c 1,..., c j and coefficients in Z (as R and F are assumed to be finite). By assumption there are coefficients C 1,..., C j ∈ R such that (C 1,..., C j ) is true in R, i.e., there exists a satisfying assignment for in R mapping its free variables c 1,..., c j to C 1,..., C j ∈ R. In order to prove the theorem, we first show that there also exists a satisfying assignment mapping each free variable to a real algebraic number. We reason as follows. Because real closed fields admit quantifier elimination (), there exists a quantifier-free formula with free variables c 1,..., c j and coefficients in Z that is R-equivalent to, i.e., for all y 1,..., y j ∈ R, (y 1,..., y j ) is true in R if and only if (y 1,..., y j ) is true in R. Hence, by assumption, (C 1,..., C j ) is true in R. Therefore, the sentence ∃c 1 ∃c j is true in R as well. Since both R and R alg are real closed fields with R alg ⊂ R and all coefficients in this sentence are from Z ⊂ R alg, we may apply the Tarski-Seidenberg transfer principle (), from which we infer that this sentence is true in R if and only if it is true in R alg. So there exists an assignment for in R alg mapping its free variables c 1,..., c j to C 1,..., C j ∈ R alg such that (C 1,..., C j ) is true in R alg, and hence also in R as is a boolean combination of atomic formulas in the variables c 1,..., c j with coefficients in Z. But then (C 1,..., C j ) is true in R as well because of the R-equivalence of and. Another application of the Tarski-Seidenberg transfer principle reveals that (C 1,..., C j ) is true in R alg, and therefore the TRS R is polynomially terminating over R alg (whose formal definition is the obvious specialization of Definition 2.7). This shows that polynomial termination over R implies polynomial termination over R alg. As the reverse implication can be shown to hold by the same technique, we conclude that polynomial termination over R is equivalent to polynomial termination over R alg. Polynomial Termination over the Reals vs. the Integers As far as the relationship of polynomial interpretations with real, rational and integer coefficients with regard to termination proving power is concerned, Lucas managed to prove the following two theorems. 3 Theorem 4.1. There are TRSs that are polynomially terminating over Q but not over N.. There are TRSs that are polynomially terminating over R but not over Q or N. Hence, the extension of the coefficient domain from the integers to the rational numbers entails the possibility to prove some TRSs polynomially terminating, which could not be proved polynomially terminating otherwise. Moreover, a similar statement holds for the extension of the coefficient domain from the rational numbers to the real numbers. Based on these results and the fact that we have the strict inclusions Z ⊂ Q ⊂ R, it is tempting to believe that polynomial interpretations with real coefficients properly subsume polynomial interpretations with rational coefficients, which in turn properly subsume polynomial interpretations with integer coefficients. Indeed, the former proposition holds according to Theorem 3.2. However, the latter proposition does not hold, as will be shown in this section. In particular, we present a TRS that can be proved terminating by a polynomial interpretation with integer coefficients, but cannot be proved terminating by a polynomial interpretation over the reals or rationals. 4.1. Motivation. In order to motivate the construction of this particular TRS, let us first observe that from the viewpoint of number theory there is a fundamental difference between the integers and the real or rational numbers. More precisely, the integers are an example of a discrete domain, whereas both the real and rational numbers are dense 4 domains. In the context of polynomial interpretations, the consequences of this major distinction are best explained by an example. To this end, we consider the polynomial function x → 2x 2 − x depicted in Figure 2 and assume that we want to use it as the interpretation of some unary function symbol. Now the point is that this function is permissible in a polynomial interpretation over N as it is both non-negative and strictly monotone over the natural numbers. However, viewing it as a function over a real (rational) variable, we observe that non-negativity is violated in the open interval (0, 1 2 ) (and monotonicity requires a properly chosen value for ). Hence, the polynomial function x → 2x 2 − x is not permissible in any polynomial interpretation over R (Q). Thus, the idea is to design a TRS that enforces an interpretation of this shape for some unary function symbol, and the tool that can be used to achieve this is polynomial interpolation. To this end, let us consider the following scenario, which is fundamentally based on the assumption that some unary function symbol f is interpreted by a quadratic polynomial f(x) = ax 2 + bx + c with (unknown) coefficients a, b and c. Then, by polynomial interpolation, these coefficients are uniquely determined by the image of f at three pairwise different locations; in this way the interpolation constraints f = 0, f = 1 and f = 6 enforce the interpretation f(x) = 2x 2 − x. Next we encode these constraints in terms of the TRS R consisting of the following rewrite rules, where s n (x) abbreviates s(s( s n-times (x) )), and consider the following two cases: polynomial interpretations over N on the one hand and polynomial interpretations over R on the other hand. In the context of polynomial interpretations over N, we observe that if we equip the function symbols s and 0 with the (natural) interpretations s N (x) = x + 1 and 0 N = 0, then the TRS R indeed implements the above interpolation constraints. 5 For example, the which is equivalent to f N = 0 in the domain of the natural numbers. Thus, this interpolation constraint can be expressed by a single rewrite rule, whereas the other two constraints require two rules each. Summing up, by virtue of the method of polynomial interpolation, we have reduced the problem of enforcing a specific interpretation for some unary function symbol to the problem of enforcing natural semantics for the symbols s and 0. Next we elaborate on the ramifications of considering the TRS R in the context of polynomial interpretations over R. To this end, let us assume that the symbols s and 0 are interpreted by s R (x) = x + s 0 and 0 R = 0, so that s has some kind of successor function semantics. Then the TRS R translates to the following constraints: Basically, this means that these constraints do not uniquely determine the function f R. In other words, the method of polynomial interpolation does not readily apply to the case of polynomial interpretations over R. However, we can make it work. To this end, we observe that if s 0 =, then the above system of inequalities actually turns into the following system of equations, which can be viewed as a set of interpolation constraints (parameterized by s 0 ) that uniquely determine f R : Clearly, if s 0 = = 1, then the symbol f is fixed to the interpretation 2x 2 − x, as was the case in the context of polynomial interpretations over N (note that in the latter case = 1 is 5 In fact, one can even show that s N (x) = x + 1 is sufficient for this purpose. implicit because of the equivalence x > N y ⇐⇒ x N y + 1). Hence, we conclude that once we can manage to design a TRS that enforces s 0 =, we can again leverage the method of polynomial interpolation to enforce a specific interpretation for some unary function symbol. Moreover, we remark that the actual value of s 0 is irrelevant for achieving our goal. That is to say that s 0 only serves as a scale factor in the interpolation constraints determining f R. Clearly, if s 0 = 1, then f R is not fixed to the interpretation 2x 2 − x; however, it is still fixed to an interpretation of the same (desired) shape, as will become clear in the proof of Lemma 4.4. Main Theorem. In the previous subsection we have presented the basic method that we use in order to show that polynomial interpretations with real or rational coefficients do not properly subsume polynomial interpretations with integer coefficients. The construction presented there was based on several assumptions, the essential ones of which are: (a) The symbol s had to be interpreted by a linear polynomial of the shape x + s 0. (b) The condition s 0 = was required to hold. (c) The function symbol f had to be interpreted by a quadratic polynomial. Now the point is that one can get rid of all these assumptions by adding suitable rewrite rules to the TRS R. The resulting TRS will be referred to as R 1, and it consists of the rewrite rules given in Table 1. The rewrite rules (4.7) and (4.8) serve the purpose of ensuring the first of the above items. Informally, (4.8) constrains the interpretation of the symbol s to a linear polynomial by simple reasoning about the degrees of the left-and right-hand side polynomials, and (4.7) does the same thing with respect to g. Because both interpretations are linear, compatibility with (4.8) can only be achieved if the leading coefficient of the interpretation of s is one. Concerning item (c) above, we remark that the tricky part is to enforce the upper bound of two on the degree of the polynomial f R that interprets the symbol f. To this end, we make the following observation. If f R is at most quadratic, then the function, for all values of x. This can be encoded in terms of rule (4.12) as soon as the interpretation of h corresponds to addition of two numbers. And this is exactly the purpose of rules (4.9), (4.10) and (4.11). More precisely, by linearity of the interpretation of g, we infer from (4.9) that the interpretation of h must have the linear shape h 2 x+h 1 y +h 0. Furthermore, compatibility with (4.10) and (4.11) implies h 2 = h 1 = 1 due to item (a) above. Hence, the interpretation of h is x + y + h 0, and it really models addition of two numbers (modulo adding a constant). Next we comment on how to enforce the second of the above assumptions. To this end, we remark that the hard part is to enforce the condition s 0. The idea is as follows. First, we consider rule (4.2), observing that if f is interpreted by a quadratic polynomial f R and s by the linear polynomial x + s 0, then (the interpretation of) its right-hand side will eventually become larger than its left-hand side with growing s 0, thus violating compatibility. In this way, s 0 is bounded from above, and the faster the growth of f R, the lower the bound. The problem with this statement, however, is that it is only true if f R is fixed (which is a priori not the case); otherwise, for any given value of s 0, one can always find a quadratic polynomial f R such that compatibility with (4.2) is satisfied. The parabolic curve associated with f R only has to be flat enough. So in order to prevent this, we have to somehow control the growth of f R. Now that is where rule (4.6) comes into play, which basically expresses that if one increases the argument of f R by a certain amount (i.e., 2s 0 ), then the value of the function is guaranteed to increase by a certain minimum amount, too. Thus, this rule establishes a lower bound on the growth of f R. And it turns out that if f R has just the right amount of growth, then we can readily establish the desired upper bound for s 0. Finally, having presented all the relevant details of our construction, it remains to formally prove our main claim that the TRS R 1 is polynomially terminating over N but not over R or Q. Proof. We consider the following interpretation: Note that the polynomial 2x 2 − x is a permissible interpretation function as it is both nonnegative and strictly monotone over the natural numbers by Lemma 2.6 (cf. Figure 2). The rewrite rules of R 1 are compatible with this interpretation because the resulting inequalities are clearly satisfied for all natural numbers x. Lemma 4.4. The TRS R 1 is not polynomially terminating over R. Proof. Let us assume that R 1 is polynomially terminating over R and derive a contradiction. Compatibility with rule (4.8) implies As a consequence, deg(s R (x)) ≤ 1, and because s R and g R must be strictly monotone, we conclude deg(s R (x)) = 1. The same reasoning applied to rule (4.7) yields deg(g R (x)) = 1. Hence, the symbols s and g must be interpreted by linear polynomials. So s R (x) = s 1 x + s 0 and g R (x) = g 1 x + g 0 with s 0, g 0 ∈ R 0 and, due to Lemma 2.9, s 1 R 1 and g 1 R 1. Then the compatibility constraint imposed by rule (4.8) gives rise to the inequality which must hold for all non-negative real numbers x. This implies the following condition on the respective leading coefficients: g 1 s 1 R s 2 1 g 1. Because of s 1 R 1 and g 1 R 1, this can only hold if s 1 = 1. Hence, s R (x) = x+s 0. This result simplifies (4.13) to g 1 s 0 > R 0, 2s 0, which implies g 1 s 0 > R 2s 0. From this, we conclude that s 0 > R 0 and g 1 > R 2. Now suppose that the function symbol f were also interpreted by a linear polynomial f R. Then we could apply the same reasoning to rule (4.7) because it is structurally equivalent to (4.8), thus inferring g 1 = 1. However, this would contradict g 1 > R 2; therefore, f R cannot be linear. Next we turn our attention to the rewrite rules (4.9), (4.10) and (4.11). Because g R is linear, compatibility with (4.9) constrains the function h : R 0 → R 0, x → h R (x, x) to be at most linear. This can only be the case if h R contains no terms of degree two or higher. In other words, h R (x, y) = h 1 x + h 2 y + h 0, where h 0 ∈ R 0, h 1 R 1 and h 2 R 1 (cf. Lemma 2.9). Because of s R (x) = x + s 0, compatibility with (4.11) implies h 1 = 1, and compatibility with (4.10) implies h 2 = 1; thus, h R (x, y) = x + y + h 0. Using the obtained information in the compatibility constraint associated with rule (4.12), we get, which simplifies to 1 deg(f R (x)) − 1 because s 0 = 0. Consequently, f R must be a quadratic polynomial. Without loss of generality, let f R (x) = ax 2 + bx + c, subject to the constraints: a > R 0 and c R 0 because of non-negativity (for all x ∈ R 0 ), and a + b R 1 because f R () > R 0, f R due to strict monotonicity of f R. Next we consider the compatibility constraint associated with rule (4.6), from which we deduce an important auxiliary result. After unraveling the definitions of > R 0, and the interpretation functions, this constraint simplifies to 4as 0 x + 4as 2 0 + 2bs 0 R 2g 1 x + g 1 h 0 + g 0 + h 0 + for all x ∈ R 0, which implies the following condition on the respective leading coefficients: 4as 0 R 2g 1 ; from this and g 1 > R 2, we conclude as 0 > R 1 (4.14) and note that as. Hence, as 0 expresses the change of the slopes of the tangents to f R at the points (0, f R ) and ( s 0 2, f R ( s 0 2 )), and thus (4.14) actually sets a lower bound on the growth of f R. Now let us consider the combined compatibility constraint imposed by the rules (4.2) and (4.4), namely 0 R + 2s 0 > R 0, f R (s R (0 R )) > R 0, 0 R, which implies 0 R + 2s 0 R 0 R + 2 by definition of > R 0,. Thus, we conclude s 0 R. In fact, we even have s 0 =, which can be derived from the compatibility constraint of rule (4.2) using the conditions s 0 R, 14 F. NEURAUTER AND A. MIDDELDORP a + b R 1 and as 0 + b R 1, the combination of the former two conditions:. But because of (4.14) and s 0 R, this inequality can only be satisfied if: This result has immediate consequences concerning the interpretation of the constant 0. To this end, we consider the compatibility constraint of rule (4.10), which simplifies to s 0 R 0 R + h 0 +. Because of (4.15) and the fact that 0 R and h 0 must be non-negative, we conclude 0 R = h 0 = 0. Moreover, condition (4.15) is the key to the proof of this lemma. To this end, we consider the compatibility constraints associated with the five rewrite rules (4.1) -(4.5): By definition of > R 0,s 0, these inequalities give rise to the following system of equations: After unraveling the definition of f R and substituting z := as 0, we get a system of linear equations in the unknowns z, b and c c = 0 z + b = 1 4z + 2b = 6 which has the unique solution z = 2, b = −1 and c = 0. Hence, f R must have the shape f R (x) = ax 2 −x = ax(x− 1 a ) in every compatible polynomial interpretation over R. However, this function is not a permissible interpretation for the function symbol f because it is not non-negative for all x ∈ R 0. In particular, it is negative in the open interval (0, 1 a ); e.g.. Hence, R 1 is not compatible with any polynomial interpretation over R. Remark 4.5. In this proof the interpretation of f is fixed to f R (x) = ax 2 − x, which violates well-definedness in R 0. However, this function is obviously well-defined in R m for a properly chosen negative real number m. So what happens if we take this R m instead of R 0 as the carrier of a polynomial interpretation? To this end, we observe that f R = 0 and f R () = (a − 1) = (as 0 − 1) =. Now let us consider some negative real number x 0 ∈ R m. We have f R (x 0 ) > R 0 and thus f R () − f R (x 0 ) < R, which means that f R violates monotonicity with respect to the order > Rm,. The previous lemma, together with Theorem 3.2, yields the following corollary. Corollary 4.6. The TRS R 1 is not polynomially terminating over Q. POLYNOMIAL INTERPRETATIONS REVISITED 15 Finally, combining the material presented in this section, we establish the following theorem, the main result of this section. Theorem 4.7. There are TRSs that can be proved polynomially terminating over N, but cannot be proved polynomially terminating over R or Q. We conclude this section with a remark on the actual choice of the polynomial serving as the interpretation of the function symbol f. Remark 4.8. As explained at the beginning of this section, the TRS R 1 was designed to enforce an interpretation for f, which is permissible in a polynomial interpretation over N but not over R (Q). The interpretation of our choice was the polynomial 2x 2 − x. However, we could have chosen any other polynomial as long as it is well-defined and strictly monotone over N but not over R (Q). The methods introduced in this section are general enough to handle any such polynomial. So the actual choice is not that important. Polynomial Termination over the Integers and Reals vs. the Rationals This section is devoted to showing that polynomial termination over N and R does not imply polynomial termination over Q. The proof is constructive, so we give a concrete TRS having the desired properties. In order to motivate the construction underlying this particular system, let us consider the following quantified polynomial inequality where P ∈ Z is a polynomial with integer coefficients, all of whose roots are irrational and which is positive for some non-negative integer value of a. To be concrete, let us take P (a) = a 2 − 2 and try to satisfy ( * ) in N, Q 0 and R 0, respectively. First, we observe that a := √ 2 is a satisfying assignment in R 0. Moreover, ( * ) is also satisfiable in N by assigning a := 2, for example, and observing that the polynomial 2x 2 − x is non-negative for all x ∈ N. However, ( * ) cannot be satisfied in Q 0 as non-negativity of 2x 2 − x does not hold for all x ∈ Q 0 and P has no rational roots. To sum up, ( * ) is satisfiable in N and R 0 but not in Q 0. Thus, the basic idea now is to design a TRS containing some rewrite rule whose compatibility constraint reduces to a polynomial inequality similar in nature to ( * ). To this end, we rewrite the inequality (2x 2 − x) (a 2 − 2) 0 to because now both the left-and right-hand side can be viewed as a composition of several functions, each of which is strictly monotone and well-defined. In particular, we identify the following constituents: h(x, y) = x + y, r(x) = 2x, p(x) = x 2 and k(x) = a 2 x. Thus, the above inequality can be written in the form h(r(k(p(x))), r(x)) h(r(r(p(x))), k(x)) ( * * ) which can easily be modeled as a rewrite rule. (Note that r(x) is not strictly necessary as r(x) = h(x, x), but it gives rise to a shorter encoding.) And then we also need rewrite rules that enforce the desired interpretations for the function symbols h, r, p and k. For this purpose, we leverage the techniques presented in the previous section, in particular the method of polynomial interpolation. The resulting TRS will be referred to as R 2, and it consists of the rewrite rules given in Table 2. Each of the blocks serves a specific purpose. The largest block consists of the rules (5.1) -(5.10) and is basically a slightly modified version of the TRS R 1 of Table 1. These rules ensure that the symbol s has the semantics of a successor function x → x + s 0. Moreover, for any compatible polynomial interpretation over Q (R), it is guaranteed that s 0 is equal to, the minimal step width of the order > Q,. In Section 4, these conditions were identified as the key requirements for the method of polynomial interpolation to work in this setting. Finally, this block also enforces h(x, y) = x + y. The next block, consisting of the rules (5.11) -(5.14), makes use of polynomial interpolation to achieve r(x) = 2x. Likewise, the block consisting of the rules (5.15) -(5.20) equips the symbol p with the semantics of a squaring function. And the block (5.21) -(5.25) enforces the desired semantics for the symbol k, i.e., a linear function x → k 1 x whose slope k 1 is proportional to the square of the interpretation of the constant a. Finally, the rule (5.26) encodes the main idea presented at the beginning of this section (cf. ( * * )). Lemma 5.1. The TRS R 2 is polynomially terminating over N and R. Proof. For polynomial termination over N, the following interpretation applies: Note that the polynomial 3x 2 −2x+1 is a permissible interpretation function by Lemma 2.6. Rule (5.26) gives rise to the constraint which holds for all x ∈ N. For polynomial termination over R, we let = 1 but we have to modify the interpretation as 4x 2 − 2x + 1 > R 0, 0 does not hold for all x ∈ R 0. Taking a R = √ 2, k R (x) = 2x and the above interpretations for the other function symbols establishes polynomial termination over R. Note that the constraint 4x 2 + 2x + 1 > R 0, 4x 2 + 2x associated with rule (5.26) trivially holds. Moreover, the functions f R (x) = 3x 2 − 2x + 1 and p R (x) = x 2 are strictly monotone with respect to > R 0, due to Lemma 2.10. Lemma 5.2. The TRS R 2 is not polynomially terminating over Q. Proof. Let us assume that R 2 is polynomially terminating over Q and derive a contradiction. Adapting the reasoning in the proof of Lemma 4.4, we infer from compatibility with the rules (5.1) -(5.9) that s Q (x) = x + s 0, g Q (x) = g 1 x + g 0, h Q (x, y) = x + y + h 0, and f Q (x) = ax 2 + bx + c, subject to the following constraints: Next we consider the compatibility constraints associated with the rules (5.9) and (5.10), from which we deduce an important auxiliary result. Compatibility with rule (5.9) implies the condition g 1 Q 5 on the respective leading coefficients since h Q (x, y) = x + y + h 0, and compatibility with rule (5.10) simplifies to 4as 0 x + 4as 2 0 + 2bs 0 Q 2g 1 x + g 1 h 0 + g 0 + h 0 + for all x ∈ Q 0, from which we infer 4as 0 Q 2g 1 ; from this and g 1 Q 5, we conclude as 0 > Q 2. Now let us consider the combined compatibility constraint imposed by the rules (5.6) and (5.7), namely 0 Q + 3s 0 > Q 0, f Q (s Q (0 Q )) > Q 0, 0 Q + s 0, which implies 0 Q + 3s 0 Q 0 Q + s 0 + 2 by definition of > Q 0,. Thus, we conclude s 0 Q. In fact, we even have s 0 =, which can be derived from the compatibility constraint of rule (5.6) using the conditions s 0 Q, a + b Q 1, as 0 + b Q 1, the combination of the former two conditions, and f Q (0 Q ) Q 0 Q +, the compatibility constraint of rule (5.5): But since as 0 > Q 2 and s 0 Q, this inequality can only hold if This result has immediate consequences concerning the interpretation of the constant 0. To this end, we consider the compatibility constraint of rule (5.3), which simplifies to s 0 Q 0 Q + h 0 +. Because of (5.27) and the fact that 0 Q and h 0 must be non-negative, we conclude 0 Q = h 0 = 0. Moreover, as in the proof of Lemma 4.4, condition (5.27) is the key to the proof of the lemma at hand. To this end, we consider the compatibility constraints associated with the rules (5.15) - (5.19). By definition of > Q 0,s 0, these constraints give rise to the following system of equations: Viewing these equations as polynomial interpolation constraints, we conclude that no linear polynomial can satisfy them (because s 0 = 0). Hence, p Q must at least be quadratic. Moreover, by rule (5.20), p Q is at most quadratic (using the same reasoning as for rule (5.8), cf. the proof of Lemma 4.4). So we let p Q (x) = p 2 x 2 + p 1 x + p 0 in the equations above and infer the (unique) solution p 0 = p 1 = 0 and p 2 s 0 = 1, i.e., p Q (x) = p 2 x 2 with p 2 = 0. Next we consider the compatibility constraints associated with the rules (5.11) -(5.13), from which we deduce the interpolation constraints r Q = 0 and r Q (s 0 ) = 2s 0. Because g Q is linear, r Q must be linear, too, for compatibility with rule (5.14). Hence, by polynomial interpolation, r Q (x) = 2x. Likewise, k Q must be linear for compatibility with rule (5.24), i.e., k Q (x) = k 1 x + k 0. In particular, k 0 = 0 due to compatibility with rule (5.21), and then the compatibility constraints associated with rule (5.22) and rule (5.23) yield p 3 2 a 4 Q + 2s 0 − Q k 1 p 2 a 2 Q + s 0 Q p 3 2 a 4 Q +. But s 0 =, hence k 1 p 2 a 2 Q = p 3 2 a 4 Q, and since a Q cannot be zero due to compatibility with rule (5.25), we obtain k 1 = p 2 2 a 2 Q. In other words, k Q (x) = p 2 2 a 2 Q x. Finally, we consider the compatibility constraint associated with rule (5.26), which simplifies to (2p 2 x 2 − x)((p 2 a Q ) 2 − 2) Q 0 for all x ∈ Q 0. However, this inequality is unsatisfiable as the polynomial 2p 2 x 2 − x is negative for some x ∈ Q 0 and (p 2 a Q ) 2 − 2 cannot be zero because both p 2 and a Q must be rational numbers. Combining the previous two lemmata, we obtain the main result of this section. Theorem 5.3. There are TRSs that can be proved polynomially terminating over both N and R, but cannot be proved polynomially terminating over Q. Incremental Polynomial Termination In this section, we consider the possibility of establishing termination by using polynomial interpretations in an incremental way. In this setting, which goes back to Lankford , one weakens the compatibility requirement of the interpretation and the TRS R under consideration to P ℓ P r for every rewrite rule ℓ → r of R and P ℓ > P r for at least one rewrite rule ℓ → r of R. After removing those rules of R satisfying the second condition, one is free to choose a different interpretation for the remaining rules. This process is repeated until all rewrite rules have been removed. Definition 6.1. For D ∈ {N, Q, R alg, R} and n 1, a TRS R is said to be polynomially terminating over D in n steps if either n = 1 and R is polynomially terminating over D or n > 1 and there exists a polynomial interpretation P over D and a non-empty subset S R such that P is weakly and strictly monotone, R ⊆ P and S ⊆ > P, and R \ S is polynomially terminating over D in n − 1 steps. Furthermore, we call a TRS R incrementally polynomially terminating over D if there exists some n 1, such that R is polynomially terminating over D in n steps. In Section 6.1 we show that incremental polynomial termination over N and R does not imply incremental polynomial termination over Q. In Section 6.2 we show that incremental polynomial termination over N does not imply incremental polynomial termination over R. Below we show that the TRSs R 1 and R 2 cannot be used for this purpose. We moreover extend Theorems 3.2, 4.1, and 4.2 to incremental polynomial termination. Theorem 6.2. Let D ∈ {N, Q, R alg, R}, and let R be a TRS. If R is incrementally polynomially terminating over D, then it is terminating. Proof. Note that the polynomial interpretation P in Definition 6.1 is an extended monotone algebra that establishes relative termination of S with respect to R, cf. . The result follows by an easy induction on the number of steps n in Definition 6.1. For weak monotonicity of univariate quadratic polynomials we use the following obvious criterion. We give the full picture of the relationship between the three notions of incremental polynomial termination over N, Q and R, showing that it is essentially the same as the one depicted in Figure 1 for direct polynomial termination. However, we have to replace the TRSs R 1 and R 2 as the proofs of Lemmata 4.4 and 5.2 break down if we allow incremental termination proofs. In more detail, the proof of Lemma 4.4 does not extend because the TRS R 1 is incrementally polynomially terminating over Q. Lemma 6.4. The TRS R 1 is incrementally polynomially terminating over Q. Proof. This can be seen by considering the interpretation with = 1. The rewrite rules of R 1 give rise to the following inequalities: x + 1 Q x x 2 + 5x + 6 Q x 2 + 5x + 5 2 x 2 + 3x + 5 2 Q x 2 + 3x + 2 Removing the rules from R 1 for which the corresponding constraint remains true after strengthening Q to > Q 0,, leaves us with (4.2), (4.8) and (4.12), which are easily handled, e.g. by the interpretation Similarly, the TRS R 2 of Table 2 can be shown to be incrementally polynomially terminating over Q. The following result strengthens Theorem 4.1. Theorem 6.5. There are TRSs that are incrementally polynomially terminating over Q but not over N. Proof. Consider the TRS R 3 consisting of the single rewrite rule It is easy to see that R 3 cannot be polynomially terminating over N. As the notions of polynomial termination and incremental polynomial termination coincide for one-rule TRSs, R 3 is not incrementally polynomially terminating over N. f(g(x)) → g(g(f(x))) (4.7) g(s(x)) → s(s(g(x))) (4.8) The following interpretation establishes polynomial termination over Q: To this end, we note that the compatibility constraint associated with the single rewrite rule gives rise to the inequality 2 > Q 0,1 1, which holds by definition of > Q 0,1. Further note that the interpretation functions are well-defined and monotone with respect to > Q 0,1 as a consequence of Lemmata 2.9 and 2.10. In fact, the TRS R 3 proves the stronger statement that there are TRSs which are polynomially terminating over Q but not incrementally polynomially terminating over N. Our proof is both shorter and simpler than the original proof of Theorem 4.1 in , but see Remark 2.11. In analogy to Theorem 3.2, incremental polynomial termination over Q implies incremental polynomial termination over R. Theorem 6.6. If a TRS is incrementally polynomially terminating over Q, then it is also incrementally polynomially terminating over R. Proof. The proof of Theorem 3.2 can be extended with the following statements, which also follow from Lemma 3.1: weak monotonicity of f Q with respect to Q implies weak monotonicity on R 0 with respect to R, P ℓ Q P r for all x 1,..., x m ∈ Q 0 implies P ℓ R P r for all x 1,..., x m ∈ R 0. Hence the result follows. To show that the converse of Theorem 6.6 does not hold, we consider the TRS R 4 consisting of the rewrite rules of Table 3. Lemma 6.7. The TRS R 4 is polynomially terminating over R. Proof. We consider the following interpretation: The rewrite rules of R 4 are compatible with this interpretation because the resulting inequalities are clearly satisfied for all x ∈ R 0. It remains to show that R 4 is not incrementally polynomially terminating over Q. We also show that it is neither incrementally polynomially terminating over N. But first we present the following auxiliary result on a subset of its rules. Lemma 6.8. Let D ∈ {N, Q, R}, and let P be a strictly monotone polynomial interpretation over D that is weakly compatible with the rules (4.7) -(4.11). Then the interpretations of the symbols s, h and g have the shape where all coefficients are non-negative and g 1 2. Moreover, the interpretation of the symbol f is at least quadratic. Proof. Let the unary symbols f, g and s be interpreted by non-constant polynomials f D (x), g D (x) and s D (x). (Note that strict monotonicity of P obviously implies these conditions.) Then the degrees of these polynomials must be at least 1, such that weak compatibility with (4.8) implies which simplifies to deg(s D (x)) 1. Hence, we obtain deg(s D (x)) = 1 and, by applying the same reasoning to (4.7), deg(g D (x)) = 1. So the function symbols s and g must be interpreted by linear polynomials s D (x) = s 1 x+s 0 and g D (x) = g 1 x+g 0, where s 0, s 1, g 0, g 1 ∈ D 0 due to well-definedness over D 0 and s 1, g 1 > 0 to make them non-constant. Then the weak compatibility constraint imposed by (4.8) gives rise to the inequality which must hold for all x ∈ D 0. This implies the following condition on the respective leading coefficients: g 1 s 1 s 2 1 g 1. Due to s 1, g 1 > 0, this can only hold if s 1 1. Now suppose that the function symbol f were also interpreted by a linear polynomial f D. Then we could apply the same reasoning to the rule (4.7) because it is structurally equivalent to (4.8), thus inferring g 1 1. So f D cannot be linear if g 1 > 1. Next we consider the rewrite rules (4.9), (4.10) and (4.11). As g D is linear, weak compatibility with (4.9) implies that the function h D (x, x) is at most linear as well. This can only be the case if the interpretation h D is a linear polynomial function h D (x, y) = h 1 x+h 2 y+h 0, where h 0, h 1, h 2 ∈ D 0 due to well-definedness over D 0. Since s D (x) = s 1 x+s 0, weak compatibility with (4.11) implies s 1 h 1, and weak compatibility with (4.10) implies s 1 h 2. Similarly, we obtain g 1 h 1 + h 2 from weak compatibility with (4.9). Now if s 1, h 1, h 2 1, conditions that are implied by strict monotonicity of s D and h D (using Lemma 2.9 for D ∈ {Q, R}), then we obtain s 1 = h 1 = h 2 = 1 and g 1 2, such that F. NEURAUTER AND A. MIDDELDORP with g 1 2, which shows that f D cannot be linear. Due to the fact that all of the above assumptions (on the interpretations of the symbols f, g, h and s) follow from strict monotonicity of P, this concludes the proof. With the help of this lemma it is easy to show that the TRS R 4 is not incrementally polynomially terminating over Q or N. Lemma 6.9. The TRS R 4 is not incrementally polynomially terminating over Q or N. Proof. Let D ∈ {N, Q}, and let P be a strictly monotone polynomial interpretation over D that is weakly compatible with R 4. Then, by Lemma 6.8, the interpretations of the symbols s, h and g have the shape As the interpretations of the symbols s and h are linear, weak compatibility with (6.2) implies that the interpretation of k is at most linear as well. Then, letting k D (x) = k 1 x + k 0, the weak compatibility constraints associated with (6.1) and (6.2) give rise to the following conditions on the respective leading coefficients: 2 k 2 1 2. Hence, k 1 = √ 2, which is not a rational number. So we conclude that there is no strictly monotone polynomial interpretation over N or Q that is weakly compatible with the TRS R 4. This implies that R 4 is not incrementally polynomially terminating over N or Q. Combining Lemmata 6.7 and 6.9, we obtain the following result. Corollary 6.10. There are TRSs that are incrementally polynomially terminating over R but not over Q or N. As a further consequence of Lemmata 6.7 and 6.9, we see that the TRS R 4 is polynomially terminating over R but not over Q or N, which provides an alternative proof of Theorem 4.2. 6.1. Incremental Polynomial Termination over N and R vs. Q. Next we establish the analogon of Theorem 5.3 in the incremental setting. That is, we show that incremental polynomial termination over N and R does not imply incremental polynomial termination over Q. Again, we give a concrete TRS having the desired properties, but unfortunately, as was already mentioned in the introduction of this section, we cannot reuse the TRS R 2 directly. Nevertheless, we can and do reuse the principle idea underlying the construction of R 2 (cf. ( * * )). However, we use a different method than polynomial interpolation in order to enforce the desired interpretations for the involved function symbols. To this end, let us consider the (auxiliary) TRS S consisting of the rewrite rules given in Table 4. The purpose of this TRS is to equip the symbol s (f) with the semantics of a successor (squaring) function and to ensure that the interpretation of the symbol h corresponds to the addition of two numbers. Besides, this TRS will not only be helpful in this subsection but also in the next one. Lemma 6.11. Let D ∈ {N, Q, R}, and let P be a strictly monotone polynomial interpretation over D that is weakly compatible with the TRS S. Then where as 0 = 1, g 1 2 and all coefficients are non-negative. Proof. By Lemma 6.8, the interpretations of the symbols s, h and g have the shape s D (x) = x + s 0, h D (x, y) = x + y + h 0 and g D (x) = g 1 x + g 0, where all coefficients are non-negative and g 1 2. Moreover, the interpretation of f is at least quadratic. Applying this partial interpretation in (6.4) and (6.5), we obtain, by weak compatibility, the inequalities which imply k D (x) = 2x + k 0 with k 0 0 (due to well-definedness over D 0 ). Next we consider the rule (6.7) from which we infer that s D (x) = x because otherwise weak compatibility would be violated; hence, s 0 > 0. Then, by weak compatibility with (6.6), we obtain the inequality Now this can only be the case if deg(k D (x) + h 0 ) deg(f D (x + s 0 ) − f D (x)), which simplifies to 1 deg(f D (x)) − 1 since s 0 = 0 and f D is at least quadratic (hence not constant). Consequently, f D must be a quadratic polynomial function, that is, f D (x) = ax 2 + bx + c with a > 0 (due to well-definedness over D 0 ). Then the inequalities arising from weak compatibility with (6.6) and (6.7) simplify to 2x + k 0 + h 0 D 0 2as 0 x + as 2 0 + bs 0 4as 0 x + 4as 2 0 + 2bs 0 D 0 4x + 3h 0 + k 0 both of which must hold for all x ∈ D 0. Hence, by looking at the leading coefficients, we infer that as 0 = 1. Furthermore, weak compatibility with (6.8) is satisfied if and only if the inequality 2as 0 x + as 2 0 + bs 0 D 0 0 D + s 0 + h 0 holds for all x ∈ D 0. For x = 0, and using the condition as 0 = 1, we conclude that bs 0 D 0 0 D + h 0 D 0 0, which implies that b 0 as s 0 > 0. Using all the information gathered above, the compatibility constraint associated with (6.9) gives rise to the inequality 0 D 0 f D (0 D ) + 2 0 D + bs 0 + h 0, all of whose summands on the right-hand side are non-negative as b 0 and all interpretation functions must be well-defined over D 0. Consequently, we must have 0 h(r(q(f(x))), r(x)) → h(r 2 (f(x)), q(x)) (6.13) m → s (6.18) In order to establish the main result of this subsection, we extend the TRS S by the rewrite rules given in Table 5, calling the resulting system R 5. As in Section 5, each block serves a specific purpose. The one made up of (6.10) -(6.12) enforces the desired semantics for the symbol r, that is, a linear function x → 2x that doubles its input, while the block (6.14) -(6.18) enforces a linear function x → q 1 x for the symbol q whose slope q 1 is proportional to the square of the interpretation of the constant m. Finally, (6.13) encodes the main idea of the construction, as mentioned above. Lemma 6.12. The TRS R 5 is incrementally polynomially terminating over N and R. Proof. For incremental polynomial termination over N, we start with the interpretation All interpretation functions are well-defined over N and strictly monotone (i.e., monotone with respect to > N ) as well as weakly monotone (i.e., monotone with respect to N ). Moreover, it is easy to verify that this interpretation is weakly compatible with R 5. In particular, the rule (6.13) gives rise to the constraint which holds for all x ∈ N. After removing the rules from R 5 for which (strict) compatibility holds, we are left with the rules (6.8), (6.9), (6.12), (6.13) and (6.15) -(6.17), all of which can be handled (that is, removed at once) by the following linear interpretation: For incremental polynomial termination over R, we consider the interpretation which is both weakly and strictly monotone according to Lemmata 2.10 and 6.3. So all interpretation functions are well-defined over R 0 and monotone with respect to > R 0, and R 0. Moreover, one easily verifies that this interpretation is weakly compatible with R 5. In particular, the constraint 4x 2 + 2x R 0 4x 2 + 2x associated with (6.13) trivially holds. After removing the rules from R 5 for which (strict) compatibility holds (i.e., for which the corresponding constraint remains true after strengthening R 0 to > R 0, ), we are left with (6.8), (6.9), (6.12), (6.13) and (6.15) -(6.18), all of which can be removed at once by the following linear interpretation: Lemma 6.13. The TRS R 5 is not incrementally polynomially terminating over Q. Proof. Let P be a strictly monotone polynomial interpretation over Q that is weakly compatible with R 5. According to Lemma 6.11, the symbols 0, s, f, g, h and k are interpreted as follows: where s 0, g 1, a > 0 and g 0, k 0 0. As the interpretation of k is linear, weak compatibility with the rule (6.10) implies that the interpretation of r is at most linear as well, i.e., r Q (x) = r 1 x + r 0 with r 0 0 and 2 r 1 0. We also have r 1 2 due to weak compatibility with (6.11) and 0 r 0 due to weak compatibility with (6.12); hence, r Q (x) = 2x. Similarly, by linearity of g Q and weak compatibility with (6.14), the interpretation of q must have the shape q Q (x) = q 1 x + q 0. Then weak compatibility with (6.15) yields 0 q 0 ; hence, q Q (x) = q 1 x, q 1 0. Next we note that weak compatibility with (6.16) and (6.17) implies that f Q (f Q (m Q )) = q Q (f Q (m Q )), which evaluates to a 3 m 4 Q = a q 1 m 2 Q. From this we infer that q 1 = a 2 m 2 Q as a > 0 and m Q s 0 > 0 due to weak compatibility with (6.18); i.e., q Q (x) = a 2 m 2 Q x. Finally, we consider the weak compatibility constraint associated with (6.13), which simplifies to (2ax 2 − x)((a m Q ) 2 − 2) 0 for all x ∈ Q 0. However, this inequality is unsatisfiable as the polynomial 2ax 2 − x is negative for some x ∈ Q 0 and (a m Q ) 2 − 2 cannot be zero because both a and m Q must be rational numbers. So we conclude that there is no strictly monotone polynomial interpretation over Q that is weakly compatible with the TRS R 5. This implies that R 5 is not incrementally polynomially terminating over Q. Together, Lemma 6.12 and Lemma 6.13 yield the main result of this subsection. Corollary 6.14. There are TRSs that are incrementally polynomially terminating over N and R but not over Q. 6.2. Incremental Polynomial Termination over N vs. R. In this subsection, we show that there are TRSs that are incrementally polynomially terminating over N but not over R. For this purpose, we extend the TRS S of Table 4 by the single rewrite rule f(x) → x and call the resulting system R 6. Lemma 6.15. The TRS R 6 is incrementally polynomially terminating over N. Proof. First, we consider the interpretation h N (x, y) = x + y g N (x) = 3x + 5 k N (x) = 2x + 2 which is both weakly and strictly monotone as well as weakly compatible with R 6. In particular, the constraint x 2 N x associated with f(x) → x holds for all x ∈ N. Removing the rules from R 6 for which (strict) compatibility holds leaves us with the rules (6.8), (6.9) and f(x) → x, which are easily handled, e.g. by the linear interpretation 0 N = 0 s N (x) = 3x + 2 f N (x) = 2x + 1 h N (x, y) = x + y Lemma 6.16. The TRS R 6 is not incrementally polynomially terminating over R or Q. Proof. Let D ∈ {Q, R}, and let P be a polynomial interpretation over D that is weakly compatible with R 6, and in which the interpretation of the function symbol f has the shape f D (x) = ax 2 with a > 0. Then the weak compatibility constraint ax 2 D 0 x associated with f(x) → x does not hold for all x ∈ D 0 because the polynomial ax 2 − x = ax x − 1 a is negative in the open interval 0, 1 a. As the above assumption on the interpretation of f follows from Lemma 6.11 if P is strictly monotone, we conclude that there is no strictly monotone polynomial interpretation over R or Q that is weakly compatible with the TRS R 6. This implies that R 6 is not incrementally polynomially terminating over R or Q. Together, Lemma 6.15 and Lemma 6.16 yield the main result of this subsection. Corollary 6.17. There are TRSs that are incrementally polynomially terminating over N but not over R or Q. The results presented in this section can be summarized by stating that the relationships expressed in Figure 1 remain true for incremental polynomial termination, after replacing R 1 by R 6 and R 2 by R 5. Concluding Remarks In this article, we investigated the relationship of polynomial interpretations with real, rational and integer coefficients with respect to termination proving power. In particular, we presented three new results, the first of which shows that polynomial interpretations over the reals subsume polynomial interpretations over the rationals, the second of which shows that polynomial interpretations over the reals or rationals do not properly subsume polynomial interpretations over the integers, a result that comes somewhat unexpected, and the third of which shows that there are TRSs that can be proved terminating by polynomial interpretations over the naturals or the reals but not over the rationals. These results were extended to incremental termination proofs. In it is shown how to adapt the results to the dependency pair framework. We conclude this article by reviewing our results in the context of automated termination analysis, where linear polynomial interpretations, i.e., polynomial interpretations with all interpretation functions being linear, play an important role. This naturally raises the question as to what extent the restriction to linear polynomial interpretations influences the hierarchy depicted in Figure 1, and in what follows we shall see that it changes considerably. More precisely, the areas inhabited by the TRSs R 1 and R 2 become empty, such that polynomial termination by a linear polynomial interpretation over N implies polynomial termination by a linear polynomial interpretation over Q, which in turn implies polynomial termination by a linear polynomial interpretation over R. The latter follows directly from Theorem 3.2 and Remark 3.3, whereas the former is shown below. Lemma 7.1. Polynomial termination by a linear polynomial interpretation over N implies polynomial termination by a linear polynomial interpretation over Q. Proof. Let R be a TRS that is compatible with a linear polynomial interpretation I over N, where every n-ary function symbol f is associated with a linear polynomial a n x n + + a 1 x 1 + a 0. We show that the same interpretation also establishes polynomial termination over Q with the value of set to one. To this end, we note that in order to guarantee strict monotonicity and well-definedness over N, the coefficients of the respective interpretation functions have to satisfy the following conditions: a 0 0 and a i 1 for all i ∈ {1,..., n}. Hence, by Lemma 2.9, we also have well-definedness over Q 0 and strict monotonicity with respect to the order > Q 0,1. (Strict monotonicity also follows from .) Moreover, as R is compatible with I, each rewrite rule ℓ → r ∈ R satisfies P ℓ − P r > N 0 for all x 1,..., x m ∈ N, (7.1) where P ℓ (P r ) denotes the polynomial associated with ℓ (r) and the variables x 1,..., x m are those occurring in ℓ → r. Since linear functions are closed under composition, the polynomial P ℓ − P r is a linear polynomial c m x m + + c 1 x 1 + c 0, such that (7.1) holds if and only if c 0 1 and c i 0 for all i ∈ {1,..., m}. However, then we also have P ℓ − P r > Q 0,1 0 for all x 1,..., x m ∈ Q 0, which shows that R is compatible with the linear polynomial interpretation (I, ) = (I, 1) over Q. Hence, linear polynomial interpretations over R subsume linear polynomial interpretations over Q, which in turn subsume linear polynomial interpretations over N, and these subsumptions are proper due to the results of, which were obtained using linear polynomial interpretations. |
US-UK 'special relationship' not so special any more
By Paul Reynolds
World affairs correspondent, BBC News website
The transatlantic relationship has not historically been an easy one Some sharp comments by a former British ambassador to Washington during the Iraq inquiry have again cast doubt on the strength of the so-called "special relationship" between Britain and the United States. This raises the possibility that the Iraq war will be seen as a moment after which that relationship took a real downturn. Indeed, it is arguable that the "special relationship" of the second half of the 20th Century and since has been something of a departure from what at times has been an antagonistic one. The latest signs of what might be a historic decline came when the ambassador, Sir Christopher Meyer - always ready with a quote - said that during the lead-up to the war on Iraq in 2003, Britain failed to make its influence felt on two fronts. First, it did not insist, as a condition for its support, on progress in the Middle East peace process and on better planning for post-war Iraq. History warns us not to expect too much from this transatlantic relationship
Second, it did not get a commercial trade-off. Its demands for changes to an air services agreement and steel tariffs were ignored. Sir Christopher remarked: "I said to London: 'The key thing now, quite apart from Iraq, is to translate this popularity into real achievements which benefit the national interest', and we failed." The picture he painted was one in which the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair was very much the junior and perhaps dispensable partner. Warring allies And so it also seems with Afghanistan. British Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth, under huge pressure from a relentless procession of casualties and coffins, let slip the other day his frustrations over the slowness of President Barack Obama's decision-making procedures. Sir Christopher said the UK had failed to asserts itself over the Iraq debate This "hiatus", as he put it, the British losses and the Afghan elections, had "mitigated against our ability to show progress". History, in fact, warns us not to expect too much from this transatlantic relationship. Dean Acheson, President Truman's secretary of state, is well-known for saying that Britain had lost an empire and not found a role and that the special relationship had "about played out". But he also had this perspective: "Of course a unique relationship existed between Britain and America. But unique did not mean affectionate. "We had fought England as an enemy as often as we had fought by her side as a friend." You can be the closest American ally, yet at the commercial negotiating table you are an adversary
After all, the relationship began in war in the 18th Century and continued in war at the beginning of the 19th. The "War of 1812" actually went on until 1815. Perhaps it is confined in its title to one year out of politeness by both sides. That war was about trade and it was a signal that dealing with the United States on trade matters was always going to be tough. It is. You can be the closest American ally, yet at the commercial negotiating table you are an adversary, as Sir Christopher experienced. Years of rivalry Throughout the 19th Century there was rivalry between the US and UK - in the earlier decades because the US boundaries had not been set and there was competition for land. This sometimes nearly spilled into armed conflict. Churchill believed a strong US-UK relationship was essential for peace In the 1840s, President James K Polk was pressed by Democratic party rivals - the then hawks - to declare that the northern US border should extend to the Pacific along the line of 54' 40". The cry went out: "Fifty-four Forty or Fight." In fact there was no fight. In an act of statesmanship, the border was extended along the 49th parallel and peace has reigned ever since, apart from an incident or two later when Irish Fenian supporters raided across into Canada. Ireland would often be a thorn in the side of the relationship. Commercial rivalry followed as the young republic developed its muscles and the old empire fought to cling to its dominant world position. The historical pattern is that interests are usually different and that therefore policies often diverge. This was apparent during the American Civil War when the North complained that the British favoured the South too much, especially by building ships for it. Before World War I there was no question that the isolationist US should intervene to help Britain, and it was not until 1917 that the US entered the war - then only because of the German policy of unrestricted U-boat warfare. And the Irish question could always have its impact. Chicago Mayor Big Bill Thompson, at the time when the British Black and Tans were on a rampage in Ireland, declared that if he had the chance he would "bust King George in the snoot". Churchill ambition Between the wars there was naval rivalry, ended by the Washington Treaty of 1922, which incidentally had the unfortunate consequence of disarming those who would later face Hitler. Britain has declined from being the master, to being a rival, to being a partner and now to being perhaps simply useful
The Royal Navy had to rely too much on ships laid down in World War I, among them its flagship HMS Hood, the "Mighty Hood", which lasted barely fives minutes against the Bismarck in 1941. This treaty, between friendly rivals, is one reason why American neo-conservatives were later so suspicious of treaties between adversaries. It was not, of course, until the US entry into World War II that the "special relationship" really developed. Churchill was typically world-embracing when he used the term in his Fulton speech in 1946: "Neither the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world organisation will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples... a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States." Churchill's view was too ambitious. US leadership during the Cold War was based on far more than friendship between English-speaking peoples - on Nato for a start. Britain has declined from being the master, to being a rival, to being a partner and now to being perhaps simply useful. What still counts is a security sharing arrangement and trust, which has included the US giving the UK first the Polaris and then the Trident nuclear missile. Diplomacy ebbs and flows but in a big world, the UK is getting smaller and perhaps the US simply less interested. (Update: Some e-mailers have asked why I left out some issues - Suez, Vietnam, loans etc. I did have to do some editing. One cannot list everything, but hope the main point came across.) [email protected]
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def create_job(self, job_id, prevhash, coinb1, coinb2, merkle_branches, version, nbits, ntime):
if self._id is None:
raise self.StateException('Not subscribed')
return Job(
job_id = job_id,
prevhash = prevhash,
coinb1 = coinb1,
coinb2 = coinb2,
merkle_branches = merkle_branches,
version = version,
nbits = nbits,
ntime = ntime,
target = self.target,
extranounce1 = self._extranounce1,
extranounce2_size = self.extranounce2_size,
proof_of_work = self.ProofOfWork
) |
The effect of chlorhexidine and Octapinol on early human plaque formation. A light and electron microscopic study. The influence of chlorhexidine and Octapinol® on early plaque formation in humans was assessed in vivo. Three subjects with healthy gingiva were used. Plastic films were applied to the buccal surfaces of the maxillary right first premolars and plaque was allowed to form for either 4 or 24 hours. After 1 minute of plaque development, a drop of water, 1 % chlorhexidine or 1 % Octapinol was gently applied in situ; in the 24-h experiment an additional drop was added at 12 h. In total, 76 films were obtained, with a comparable number of specimens in each of the 6 groups. The samples were processed for light and transmission electron microscopy, using standardized techniques for area sampling and cell counting. All control films were covered by a surface coating of acellular material in or on which bacteria, epithelial cells and leukocytes were observed. The controls and to a lesser extent the Octapinol samples exhibited a significant increase in bacterial count between 4 and 24 h. However, the number of bacteria in the chlorhexidine samples showed only a slight increase within this period. Some microorganisms in the chlorhexidine samples appeared to be undergoing degeneration. In the Octapinol specimens the bacterial morphology was generally intact with many extracellular areas of high electron density. Chlorhexidine and Octapinol both had a qualitative effect on early plaque formation, but only the former had a detectable quantitative effect at this initial stage of plaque accumulation. |
A staggering four out of five Brits fear criticism of their mobile phone ring tone, according to new research from Dial-a-Phone. Staggering because it’s something every mobile phone user has complete control over.
97% of Brits judge someone’s personality based upon their mobile ring tone, and on average, we change our ring tone 3.4 times each year, taking an average 37.5 minutes to make the choice.
Hollywood Blockbuster: A real movie buff, but perhaps watches one too many films!
Apparently 90% of Brits have been criticised for their choice of tone, though 42% said they had been told off for not personalising their phone.
34% of people said that someone without a cool ring tone has no style. 10% change their ring tone once a week.
“Ringtones are a cheap and fun way to personalise your mobile phone, I am shocked that so many people get stressed about it – choose something you like and don’t be ashamed to let it ring!” said Flic Everett from Dial-a-Phone. |
<filename>common/network.test.ts
import { BwUserLatency, turnRateToMaxLatency } from './network'
describe('common/network', () => {
describe('turnRateToMaxLatency', () => {
it('gives correct values', () => {
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(24, BwUserLatency.Low)).toBe(63.33333333333333)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(24, BwUserLatency.High)).toBe(105)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(24, BwUserLatency.ExtraHigh)).toBe(146.66666666666666)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(20, BwUserLatency.Low)).toBe(80)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(20, BwUserLatency.High)).toBe(130)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(20, BwUserLatency.ExtraHigh)).toBe(180)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(16, BwUserLatency.Low)).toBe(105)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(16, BwUserLatency.High)).toBe(167.5)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(16, BwUserLatency.ExtraHigh)).toBe(230)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(14, BwUserLatency.Low)).toBe(122.85714285714286)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(14, BwUserLatency.High)).toBe(194.28571428571428)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(14, BwUserLatency.ExtraHigh)).toBe(265.7142857142857)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(12, BwUserLatency.Low)).toBe(146.66666666666666)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(12, BwUserLatency.High)).toBe(230)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(12, BwUserLatency.ExtraHigh)).toBe(313.3333333333333)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(10, BwUserLatency.Low)).toBe(180)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(10, BwUserLatency.High)).toBe(280)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(10, BwUserLatency.ExtraHigh)).toBe(380)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(8, BwUserLatency.Low)).toBe(230)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(8, BwUserLatency.High)).toBe(355)
expect(turnRateToMaxLatency(8, BwUserLatency.ExtraHigh)).toBe(480)
})
})
})
|
n = int(input())
d1={1:'G',2:'GB',3:'YGB',4:'YGBI',5:'OYGBI',6:'OYGBIV'}
x=n%7;
print(int(n/7)*'ROYGBIV',end="")
if x>0:
print(d1[x])
|
Q:
Why does Pac-Man not like to eat eyes?
I know Pac-Man has no real story, but I always found it weird how he doesn't eat the ghosts' eyes.
Is there some technical reason why he doesn't, or is this just an oversight?
A:
The further the eyes are from the ghost pen, the longer it takes for them to reach it and regenerate. This means the time it takes for a ghost to respawn after being eaten is variable.
Because it is variable, the eyes give the player a measurable way to determine when the ghosts are going to respawn (when the eyes reach the ghost pen). If Pac-Man ate the ghosts' eyes, the player would have no visual idea when the ghosts would regenerate, which might be hazardous to Pac-Man's health.
A:
The eyes are there to give you a respite before the ghost regenerates in the center cage, as others have pointed out. However, it's also important to note that even if you could eat the eyes, you still couldn't! -- because immediately upon eating a ghost, the eyes begin their journey at 2x your speed toward the center cage. Unless there is a bug in the path algorithm, it is impossible for the Pac-Man to ever intersect with the eyes again once they've begun their journey.
A:
It could be that he wasn't supposed to. I mean, maybe the eyes are there to show that the ghost was eaten, leaving only the eyes behind.
If the eyes were somehow eaten, the how can the ghost spawn back and chase you again?
It would be boring if there was only one ghost chasing you right? |
<filename>backend/device/serializers.py
from rest_framework import serializers
from backend.device.models import Device, DeviceStateGroup, DeviceState
class DeviceStateGroupSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
class Meta:
model = DeviceStateGroup
fields = ('group_id', 'name',)
class DeviceStateSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
group = DeviceStateGroupSerializer()
class Meta:
model = DeviceState
fields = ('group', 'state_id', 'name',)
class DeviceSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
states = DeviceStateSerializer(many=True)
class Meta:
model = Device
fields = ('hume',
'uuid',
'name',
'description',
'category_name',
'type_name',
'states',)
|
Improved utilization of photogenerated charge using fluorine-doped TiO hollow spheres scattering layer in dye-sensitized solar cells. We demonstrate a strategy to improve utilization of photogenerated charge in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) with fluorine-doped TiO2 hollow spheres as the scattering layer, which improves the fill factor from 69.4% to 74.1% and in turn results in an overall efficiency of photoanode increased by 13% (from 5.62% to 6.31%) in comparison with the control device using undoped TiO2 hollow spheres. It is proposed that the fluorine-doping improves the charge transfer and inhibition of charge recombination to enhance the utilization of the photogenerated charge in the photoanode. |
#include <stdlib.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
/* nothing to do: if this program is started, in-kernel tests have already run successfully */
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
|
/**
* Represents all FSM states, programmable with state names, ids, entry
* functions, and exit functions.
*/
public class FsmState {
/**
* Creates a new state for this process. Note that the state ID is
* automatically generated via class utility FsmUtilities.
*
* @param name - Name of the state
* @param entryFunction Entry function (null if none is required)
* @param exitFunction Exit function (null if none is required)
*/
public FsmState(String name, FsmAction entryFunction, FsmAction exitFunction) {
this.name = name;
entryAction = entryFunction;
exitAction = exitFunction;
id = FsmUtilities.registerState(name);
}
/**
* Executes the entry function, if exists.
*
* @param event The event to be passed into the state entry function.
* @throws java.lang.InterruptedException User Interruptionm
*/
public void executeEntry(FsmEvent event) throws InterruptedException {
if (null != entryAction) {
entryAction.handleEvent(event);
}
}
/**
* Executes the exit function, if exists.
*
* @param event The event to be passed to the state exit function.
* @throws java.lang.InterruptedException User interruption
*/
public void executeExit(FsmEvent event) throws InterruptedException {
if (null != exitAction) {
exitAction.handleEvent(event);
}
}
@Override
public String toString() {
return "FsmState{" + "id=" + id + ", name=" + name + '}';
}
public final int id;
public final String name;
/**
* @supplierCardinality 1
*/
private final FsmAction exitAction;
/**
* @supplierCardinality 1
*/
private final FsmAction entryAction;
} |
"Robotics in medicine" cryonics in nanotechnology raising from death A B ST R A C T Cryonics-raising the dead: The concept goes like this: When a patients heart stops beating, but before the structure of his brain starts to degenerate, the patient is attached to a heart lung machine and progressively infused with antifreeze and other cellular stabilizers and then his body temperature is lowered until the patient is at liquid nitrogen temperatures. At this point, all molecular change stops indefinitely and the patient are put in storage. When the nanotechnology cell repair devices become available, the fatal disease that caused death is reversed, the anti-freeze toxicity is removed, and the patient is warmed back up alive and well. In cryonics- freezing people fore future scientists take patients who have been labeled as dead by current medical criteria, replace their blood and much of their body water with chemicals to inhibit freezing damage, and preserve them in liquid nitrogen at (-196 Celsius). At that temperature all molecules in the body are locked in solids can no longer move around to react. Thus the individual can remain unchanged for thousands of years. It is possible that frozen patients will repairable and relabeled as potentially alive by using nannies |
package example.service;
import example.repo.Customer1632Repository;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Service;
@Service
public class Customer1632Service {
public Customer1632Service(Customer1632Repository repo) {
}
}
|
Tribological Performance of Micro-Groove Tools of Improving Tool Wear Resistance in Turning AISI 304 Process AISI 304 has good physical and chemical properties and thus is widely used. However, due to the low thermal diffusivity, the cutting temperature of AISI 304 is high accelerating the wear of the tool. Therefore, tool wear is a major problem in machining hard cutting materials. In this study, we developed a new type of micro-groove tool whose rake surface was distributed with micro-groove by powder metallurgy based on the finite element temperature field morphology. We compared the wear of the proposed micro-groove tool with an untreated one by using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and an X-ray energy spectrum. The abrasive, adhesive, and oxidation wear of the rake and the flank face of the micro-groove tool were lower than that of the untreated one. Due to the micro-groove on the rake face of the tool, the contact length between the tool and chip was reduced, leaving more extension space. Furthermore, chip extrusion deformation was avoided, and the energy caused by chip deformation was reduced. After 70 min of cutting, the counterpart reached the specified wear amount while the main cutting force, the feed resistance, and the cutting depth resistance of the proposed micro-groove tool were reduced by 16.1%, 33.9%, and 40.1%, respectively. With regard to steady state, the cutting temperature was reduced by 17.2% and the wear width of the flank face was reduced by 36.7%. Introduction AISI 304 has good comprehensive performance in high-temperature, corrosive environments and it is widely used in important fields such as shipping, aviation, medicine, and nuclear power. However, because of its good toughness, high plasticity, and serious work hardening during cutting, the tool is prone to wear and its cutting life is short. To solve such problems, methods involving cutting fluids, lubrication systems, minimum quantity lubrication (MQL), and tool surface coatings are generally used to improve the tribological properties of the tool-chip contact area. The cooling lubricant can reduce the friction at the tool-chip interface and the heat generated during the cutting process. It can also reduce the normal and shear stress of the tool-chip interface as well as the stress distribution along the interface. Several scholars have studied the relationships among dry cutting, MQL, and minimum quantity cooling lubrication (MQCL). Compared to dry cutting and conventional machining, MQL and MQCL reduce the cutting zone temperature and tool wear, consequently prolonging tool life. Maruda et al. applied a cemented carbide tool to cut AISI 1045 and found that MQCL with extreme pressure anti-wear additive can form a thin friction film layer on the tool surface during the cutting process, enhancing the wear resistance of the tool. Hegab et al. used a nano-additive to improve the cold cutting efficiency of titanium alloy on the basis of micro-lubrication. Compared with micro-lubrication, nanofluids improve the lubrication property of the rake and flank face of the tool, enabling it to have better cutting performance and better energy consumption performance. Jamil et al. found that Al 2 O 3 Multiwalled carbon nanotube-based MQL noticeably reduced the surface roughness and main cutting force compared with cryogenic CO 2 -based cooling. Hegab et al. used multiwalled carbon nanotubes and aluminum oxide as nano-cutting fluid additives to cut Inconel 718 and found that these two kinds of nano-fluid improve the tool wear. When cutting AISI 1045 steel, Adel et al. found that using the cutting method of MQL-assisted nanofluid can obtain better machining surface quality and lower energy consumption. In recent years, dry cutting has gradually become a new trend. However, this method has greater requirements for high temperature resistance and wear resistance of the tool. Fortunately, the tool coating is just the barrier of the cutting heat and chemical corrosion, thus reducing the impact of heat on the tool. The tool coating can also reduce the friction of the tool-chip interface, optimizing the dry cutting environment. Many researchers have shown that physical vapor deposition (PVD) coatings like CrN, AlCrN, TiN, and AlTiN can improve the cutting performance of the tool as well as prolong its life. For example, Beake et al. found that AlCrN and AlTiN coating tools performed well under extreme conditions because of their excellent oxidation resistance, high-temperature hardness, and high-temperature wear resistance. Some scholars have also studied the tribological properties of single and double coatings. For single-layer coatings, TiN has a lower friction coefficient and TiAlN has a lower wear resistance. The TiN/TiAlN multi-layer coating has a lower friction coefficient, lower wear rate, and better corrosion resistance than the single-layer coating. The large use of cutting fluids increases the cost as well as the pressure of the environment. However, it is difficult to develop new coating techniques as the current ones have become very well-developed. Therefore, tool texture alteration has proven to be an effective method for improving the cutting performance of the tool. Kawasegi et al. experimentally studied the cutting properties of A5052 aluminum alloy by using femtosecond lasers to generate micro-scale and nanoscale textures on the rake face of carbide tools. It was found that the cutting force and friction coefficient of the textured tool decreased along the tool-chip interface during the cutting process. This decrease in the cutting force and friction coefficient depends on the direction of the texture. Koshy et al. used electric sparks to produce isodirectional grooves on the rake face of tool. With such a structure, the cutting force and feed resistance were significantly reduced. In addition, large, deep grooves could be used to more effectively improve tribological properties. Kmmel et al. used lasers to form different textures on the surface of the tool by which the tool adhesion can be changed by specific textures. Deng et al. tested three surface texture tools with different geometric characteristics (elliptical, parallel, and vertical grooves) in which the elliptical one had the lowest cutting force, cutting temperature, and friction coefficient of the tool-chip interface. Based on the literature, it is clear that tool textures can improve cutting performance and reduce tool wear. However, the texture shape and size are mostly based on bionics or multiple experiments, lacking theoretical basis. In this study, we cooperated with an enterprise (Zigong Cemented Carbide Tool Corp., Ltd., Zigong, China) aiming to develop a tool that can be used to process medical ware. We proposed a micro-groove design method by simulating the movement and temperature distribution of the rake face during the cutting process. Such a design was based on a focus on reduction of the friction coefficient and cutting energy. In this way, two cutting tools were designed for cutting 40CrMnMo and Inconel 718. We compared the cutting force, cutting temperature, tool-chip frictional coefficient, sliding energy, and wear of the rake and flank face of the proposed tool with the untreated one. We believe that the micro-groove tool can improve the distribution of cutting energy and reduce tool wear during the cutting process The second section describes the design and manufacture of cutting tools. The third section describes the experimental methods and materials. The fourth section is the experimental results and discussion, including the calculation of knife chip friction coefficient and friction energy and the analysis of SEM and X-ray energy spectrometer on the rake and flank face of the micro-groove tool. Last, we present the conclusion. Tool Design and Manufacturing In this study, commercial cemented carbide tools (ZiGong Cemented Carbide Tool corp., LTD., Zigong, China) were used for cutting; these were collectively categorized with the label "Tool A" (untreated tools). Tool B was designed by adding a micro-groove near the cutting edge on the rake face of Tool A, which was based on the simulation of the temperature field of Tool A during the cutting process. Tool A and Tool B have the same geometric angles which are listed in Table 1. Both Tools A and B are made of K20 cemented carbide, and the main component is WC. The tool radius is 27.92 m. The design process of Tool B was as follows. First, a cutting simulation was conducted with the use of DEFORM 11.2 software (V11.2, Scientific Forming Technologies Corporation, Columbu, OH, USA), using the cutting parameters recommended by the manufacturer (cutting speed v equals 120 m/min, feed rate f is 0.15 mm per revolution (mm/rev), and cutting depth a p is 1.5 mm). After the simulation, the temperature points and corresponding coordinate data of the high temperature range of the untreated tool were extracted and then processed with MATLAB (R2016b, the Mathworks Inc., Natick, MA, USA). Considering the reliability and machinability of the tool, the temperature field area of the rake face in the range of 540 to 713 C was selected. After interpolation with MATLAB, the obtained data were imported into NX. Then, the temperature field curve and the mesh surface were fitted by using a nonuniform rational basis spline (NURBS). Finally, the micro-groove was formed by trimming the body function. This established the geometric model of Tool B. Next, Tool B was fabricated with the same powder metallurgy process as that of Tool A. The TiAlN coating was deposited on both tools by PVD with the thickness of 5 m with 32% Ti, 36% Al, and 32% N. The shape and size of Tool B are shown in Figure 1. The maximum depth of the micro-groove is 0.2 mm. Cutting Process Machining tests were carried out on a C6136HK CNC lathe (the FAVGOL, Chongqing, China). A dynamometer (Kistler-9257-B, Kistler Instrumente AG, Winterthur, Switzerland) was used for testing the cutting force ( Figure 2). The workpiece was an AISI 304 cylindrical rod material with a diameter of 60 mm and a length of 150 mm. Material properties and chemical composition of the tool and the workpiece are shown in Table 2 and Table 3. During the cutting process, we used Tool A and Tool B to cut the same length of the workpiece each time and then recorded the time. To intuitively explain the equilibrium force system on the cutting surfaces of Tool A and Tool B, a two-dimensional cutting mechanics model was established, as shown in Figure 3. In this figure, Ff Cutting Process Machining tests were carried out on a C6136HK CNC lathe (the FAVGOL, Chongqing, China). A dynamometer (Kistler-9257-B, Kistler Instrumente AG, Winterthur, Switzerland) was used for testing the cutting force ( Figure 2). The workpiece was an AISI 304 cylindrical rod material with a diameter of 60 mm and a length of 150 mm. Material properties and chemical composition of the tool and the workpiece are shown in Tables 2 and 3. Cutting Process Machining tests were carried out on a C6136HK CNC lathe (the FAVGOL, Chongqing, China). A dynamometer (Kistler-9257-B, Kistler Instrumente AG, Winterthur, Switzerland) was used for testing the cutting force ( Figure 2). The workpiece was an AISI 304 cylindrical rod material with a diameter of 60 mm and a length of 150 mm. Material properties and chemical composition of the tool and the workpiece are shown in Table 2 and Table 3. During the cutting process, we used Tool A and Tool B to cut the same length of the workpiece each time and then recorded the time. To intuitively explain the equilibrium force system on the cutting surfaces of Tool A and Tool B, a two-dimensional cutting mechanics model was established, as shown in Figure 3. In this figure, Ff During the cutting process, we used Tool A and Tool B to cut the same length of the workpiece each time and then recorded the time. To intuitively explain the equilibrium force system on the cutting surfaces of Tool A and Tool B, a two-dimensional cutting mechanics model was established, as shown in Figure 3. In this figure, Materials 2020, 13, 1236 5 of 20 F f and F n are the friction force and positive pressure of the tools acting on the chip, respectively, whereas F x and F y are the vertical and horizontal components of the workpiece acting on it, respectively. The resultants of these two pairs of forces, F r and F rs, balance each other. and Fn are the friction force and positive pressure of the tools acting on the chip, respectively, whereas Fx and Fy are the vertical and horizontal components of the workpiece acting on it, respectively. The resultants of these two pairs of forces, Fr and Frs, balance each other. Because of the existence of micro-groove, the original balance relationship between Tool B and the chips was destroyed. The separation point of the tool and the chip moved along the inner wall of the micro-groove to a certain point, and a new tool-chip balance relationship was established. At this point, the resultant action line rotated in a clockwise direction and the positive pressure direction of the chip and the rake face changed. Following the cutting theory and test comparison, the front angle of Tool B 0 increased, the friction angle decreased, and the shear angle increased ( Figure 4B). Assuming that the positive pressure Fn of the cutter to the chip remained unchanged, it could be concluded that Fx and Fr would decrease according to Equations -. To explore the friction status of the tool-chip interface and to compare the changes of the friction factor and the frictional dissipation energy in the cutting process, we built a three-dimensional bevel cutting model ( Figure 4A). According to the theory of metal cutting and the geometric relationship, we could obtain: Because of the existence of micro-groove, the original balance relationship between Tool B and the chips was destroyed. The separation point of the tool and the chip moved along the inner wall of the micro-groove to a certain point, and a new tool-chip balance relationship was established. At this point, the resultant action line rotated in a clockwise direction and the positive pressure direction of the chip and the rake face changed. Following the cutting theory and test comparison, the front angle of Tool B 0 increased, the friction angle decreased, and the shear angle increased ( Figure 4B). Assuming that the positive pressure F n of the cutter to the chip remained unchanged, it could be concluded that F x and F r would decrease according to Equations -. and Fn are the friction force and positive pressure of the tools acting on the chip, respectively, whereas Fx and Fy are the vertical and horizontal components of the workpiece acting on it, respectively. The resultants of these two pairs of forces, Fr and Frs, balance each other. Because of the existence of micro-groove, the original balance relationship between Tool B and the chips was destroyed. The separation point of the tool and the chip moved along the inner wall of the micro-groove to a certain point, and a new tool-chip balance relationship was established. At this point, the resultant action line rotated in a clockwise direction and the positive pressure direction of the chip and the rake face changed. Following the cutting theory and test comparison, the front angle of Tool B 0 increased, the friction angle decreased, and the shear angle increased ( Figure 4B). Assuming that the positive pressure Fn of the cutter to the chip remained unchanged, it could be concluded that Fx and Fr would decrease according to Equations To explore the friction status of the tool-chip interface and to compare the changes of the friction factor and the frictional dissipation energy in the cutting process, we built a three-dimensional bevel cutting model ( Figure 4A). According to the theory of metal cutting and the geometric relationship, we could obtain: To explore the friction status of the tool-chip interface and to compare the changes of the friction factor and the frictional dissipation energy in the cutting process, we built a three-dimensional bevel cutting model ( Figure 4A). According to the theory of metal cutting and the geometric relationship, we could obtain: Materials 2020, 13, 1236 6 of 20 where s, n, b, b c, t c, and a w were, respectively, the inclination angle, the normal shear angle, the cutting thickness, the chip thickness, the chip width, and the uncut width. 0 and n were rake and normal angles. c and s represent the chip angle and shear chip angle. In the cutting process, the three velocity vectors formed closed triangles which can be seen in Figure 4B. According to the three-dimensional model of the velocity triangle, we obtained: where v c, v, and v s were chip velocity, cutting velocity, and shear velocity, respectively. The equivalent transformation was achieved by angle transformation between the three-dimensional model and the right-angle cutting model. To obtain the three-dimensional coordinate forces (F x ', F y ', F z '), we first made (F x, F y, F z ) rotate at angle n around axis x'. We then rotated Angle s around axis z, as shown in Figure 5. tan cos( ) tan sin tan cos where s, n, b, bc, tc, and aw were, respectively, the inclination angle, the normal shear angle, the cutting thickness, the chip thickness, the chip width, and the uncut width. 0 and n were rake and normal angles. c and s represent the chip angle and shear chip angle. In the cutting process, the three velocity vectors formed closed triangles which can be seen in Figure 4B. According to the threedimensional model of the velocity triangle, we obtained: where vc, v, and vs were chip velocity, cutting velocity, and shear velocity, respectively. The equivalent transformation was achieved by angle transformation between the three-dimensional model and the right-angle cutting model. To obtain the three-dimensional coordinate forces (Fx', Fy', Fz'), we first made (Fx, Fy, Fz) rotate at angle n around axis x'. We then rotated Angle s around axis z, as shown in Figure 5. The friction force and the normal force on the rake face of the tool were: F n = F x sin s cos n + F y sin n + F z cos s cos n According to Equations and, the friction factor of the cutting tool's rake face was calculated as: The frictional energy was obtained from Equations and and the cutting parameters mentioned above: where a p and f represent cutting depth and feed, respectively. After the cutting process, the tool was removed and cleaned by an ultrasonic cleaning machine before it was blown dry. Then we used an industrial microscope (BX51-P, Olympus Corporation, Tokyo, Japan) for observation of the cumulative wear amount on the flank face until it reached 150 m. At the same time, a dynamometer (Kistler-9257-B, Kistler Instrumente AG, Winterthur, Switzerland) was used to test the cutting forces in three cutting directions and the wear mechanism of the two tools was analyzed. Finally, SEM (Zeiss SUPRA 40; Carl Zeiss AG, Jena, Germany) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) were used to analyze the wear morphology and element composition of the tool surface. It was very difficult to obtain the surface temperature of the tool in real time during the cutting process because the position of the tool tip frequently changed. Therefore, we simulated the cutting process with Deform V11.2 software (Scientific Forming Technologies Corporation, Columbus, the USA). In cutting simulation, it is reasonable to raise the heat transfer coefficient to make the tool temperature reach the constant state in a short time, because this is consistent with the experimental results. In the simulation process, the cutting speed vc was 120 m/min, the depth of cut a p equaled to 1.5 mm, and the feed Rate f was 0.1 mm per revolution (mm/rev). The material model of Tools A and B is John cook model. We set the environmental temperature as 20 C and the shear friction factor was 0.4. No cutting fluid was added during the cutting process. The convective heat transfer coefficient between the tool and the workpiece was set at 2000 to quickly obtain the dynamic balance and relatively stable tool temperature field of the tool. The tool was regarded as a rigid body and the workpiece as a plastic body, both of which adopted a tetrahedral mesh with a relative mesh size of 50,000 and a dimension ratio of 7. The cutting length was set at 100 mm; simulation results are shown in Figure 6. During the time of 0.006-0.008 s, the temperature of Tool A and Tool B reaches the stable state, and the temperature fluctuation of tools is small. Their average temperatures were 713.2 and 590.5, respectively. The temperature of cutting decreased by 17.2% for Tool B compared to Tool A. Experimental Results Both Tool A and Tool B were used to cut AISI 304. The flank face reached the specified wear Experimental Results Both Tool A and Tool B were used to cut AISI 304. The flank face reached the specified wear width at 70 min and 110 min for Tool A and Tool B, respectively. Figure 7A shows the wear morphology changes of the rake and flank face of Tool A and Tool B, as observed by the use of industrial microscope BX51-P (Olympus Corporation, Japan). The contrast curves of the wear width of the flank faces are shown in Figure 7B. The tool wear process went through three distinct stages: the initial wear stage, the normal wear stage, and the severe wear stage. As shown in Figure 7A, during the first 20 min, Tool A underwent the initial wear phase. The flank face wore quickly and the corresponding wear reached 110 m. Then, the tool wear tended to be gentle during the next half hour, up to the 50 min mark. When it approached minute 50, the wear width of the flank face was~132 m. As can be seen in Figure 7A, the near-field wear of cutting edges on the rake and flank faces was serious. In the stage of severe wear, the wear on the flank face increased rapidly to 150 m. In addition, edge breakage occurred at the cutting edge which was far away from the tip for Tool A. For Tool B, in the initial wear phase, the wear amount on the flank face quickly reached 65 m, which was much less than that of Tool A at the same time. During the normal wear phase, Tool B lasted for nearly 70 min from minute 20 to minute 90 ( Figure 7B). The wear amount of the flank face of Tool B was 85 m and 95 m when it came to minute 50 and minute 70, respectively. Such a result was also significantly less than that of Tool A. From 90 min to 110 min, Tool B wore quickly and the wear width of the flank face reached 150 m. Tool B had better wear resistance than Tool A in terms of cutting time and wear width of the flank faces. We carried out this experiment for three times and the statistic results are shown in Tables 4-7. During the cutting process, Kistler-9257B was applied to test the cutting forces of Tool A and Tool B and to calculate the cutting force Fr, = + +. The measurement results are shown in Figure 7C. Both the component cutting force and the cutting resultant force of Tool B were reduced, which is consistent with Equations -. It can be seen from Figure 7C that during the cutting process, the mean values of the feed resistance Fx, the main cutting force Fy, the cutting depth resistance Fz, and the cutting force Fr of Tool B were all smaller than those of Tool A. The feed resistance and the cutting depth resistance were reduced by 27.3% and 15.1%, whereas the main cutting force and the cutting force were reduced by 1.3% and 5.7%, respectively. The cutting force values of Tool A and Tool B tested by dynamometer are shown in Figure 8. Using Equations -, the comparison of the friction coefficient and the sliding energy over time were obtained, which are shown in Figure 9A,B. Compared with Tool A, both the friction coefficient and the sliding energy of Tool B were smaller during the whole cutting process, especially after 40 min. Wear Mechanism Analysis AISI 304 has good toughness, high plasticity, low thermal conductivity, and severe work hardening. During the cutting process, the stress and temperature of the contact area of the tool-chip was high. Abrasive wear, adhesive wear, and oxidation wear occur easily on the rake and flank faces. Based on the cutting test of tool durability, Tool A and Tool B were cut for 70 min and 110 min, respectively, with the flank face wear reaching a width of 0.15 mm as the limit. SEM and EDS analysis were carried out on the rake and flank faces of both tools, and the results are as follows. During the cutting process, Kistler-9257B was applied to test the cutting forces of Tool A and Tool B and to calculate the cutting force F r, F r = F 2 x + F 2 y + F 2 z. The measurement results are shown in Figure 7C. Both the component cutting force and the cutting resultant force of Tool B were reduced, which is consistent with Equations -. It can be seen from Figure 7C that during the cutting process, the mean values of the feed resistance F x, the main cutting force F y, the cutting depth resistance F z, and the cutting force F r of Tool B were all smaller than those of Tool A. The feed resistance and the cutting depth resistance were reduced by 27.3% and 15.1%, whereas the main cutting force and the cutting force were reduced by 1.3% and 5.7%, respectively. The cutting force values of Tool A and Tool B tested by dynamometer are shown in Figure 8. Using Equations -, the comparison of the friction coefficient and the sliding energy over time were obtained, which are shown in Figure 9A,B. Compared with Tool A, both the friction coefficient and the sliding energy of Tool B were smaller during the whole cutting process, especially after 40 min. As can be seen from Figures 8 and 9, the main cutting force was almost equal before minute 43. However, the frictional coefficient as well as the sliding energy of Tool A was higher than that of Tool B. In 43 min through 70 min, the main cutting force of Tool A changed rapidly and the flank face of Tool A reached the specified wear width. At the same time, the frictional coefficient as well as the sliding energy of Tool A increased sharply. In contrast, no matter the cutting force, the frictional coefficient or the sliding energy of tool B changed smoothly. From 70 to 110 min, the flank face of Tool B reached the specified wear width, whereas the frictional coefficient and sliding energy of Tool B changes were still flat. Abrasive Wear of Tool A and Tool B As can be seen from Figure 10IA,IB, the narrow area near the cutting edge of the rake face of As can be seen from Figures 8 and 9, the main cutting force was almost equal before minute 43. However, the frictional coefficient as well as the sliding energy of Tool A was higher than that of Tool B. In 43 min through 70 min, the main cutting force of Tool A changed rapidly and the flank face of Tool A reached the specified wear width. At the same time, the frictional coefficient as well as the sliding energy of Tool A increased sharply. In contrast, no matter the cutting force, the frictional coefficient or the sliding energy of tool B changed smoothly. From 70 to 110 min, the flank face of Tool B reached the specified wear width, whereas the frictional coefficient and sliding energy of Tool B changes were still flat. Abrasive Wear of Tool A and Tool B As can be seen from Figure 10(IA,IB), the narrow area near the cutting edge of the rake face of Tool A was brighter than the other areas. This is because the color of the coating was dark, which indicates that the abrasive wear was serious and the coating material of the tool was almost polished. At the same time, there were a lot of clear plowing lines on the rake face, indicating that the friction between the tool and the chip was severe. As can be seen from Figure 10(IC,ID), the brightening narrow area near the cutting edge of Tool B was shorter and less wide than that of Tool A and the width of the narrow area was unevenly distributed. The plowing lines of the rake face were sparse and thus the abrasive wear was slight. Materials 2020, 13, x FOR PEER REVIEW 13 of 21 densely distributed. As can be seen from Figure 10IIC,IID, there was wear in the same area of Tool B as compared with Tool A. However, the average wear width was smaller. There were fewer plowing lines in the lower part of the wear zone and there were shallower wear marks. The abrasive wear on the flank face was slight. Comparison of Adhesive Wear and Oxidation Wear of Rake Face Tool A and Tool B In the cutting process of AISI 304, when the chips passed through the rake face, the contact area between the tool and the chip was under high-temperature and high-pressure conditions. The adhesive force and the stick-slip effect caused stress and fractures on the coating surface, wearing the coating at last. This made the chip contact with the tool directly, and thus aggravated the wear. Figure 10II shows the wear of the flank face of Tool A and Tool B. There was a severe wear zone in the near-field of the cutting edge on the flank face of Tool A and the plowing lines were also densely distributed. As can be seen from Figure 10(IIC,IID), there was wear in the same area of Tool B as compared with Tool A. However, the average wear width was smaller. There were fewer plowing lines in the lower part of the wear zone and there were shallower wear marks. The abrasive wear on the flank face was slight. Comparison of Adhesive Wear and Oxidation Wear of Rake Face Tool A and Tool B In the cutting process of AISI 304, when the chips passed through the rake face, the contact area between the tool and the chip was under high-temperature and high-pressure conditions. The adhesive force and the stick-slip effect caused stress and fractures on the coating surface, wearing the coating at last. This made the chip contact with the tool directly, and thus aggravated the wear. The SEM and EDS analysis results of the worn rake face of Tool A are shown in Figures 11 and 12, respectively. We noted from Figure 11A-C that the coating exfoliation in the near-field of cutting edge was serious. There was obvious adhesive on the rake face and there was a large piece of adhesive far away from the tool tip where chips outflowed and the residual chips stuck easily. Figure 11D-F shows the surface coating materials of the tool, which are Ti, Al, and N, respectively. As can be seen from the figure, the three elements were mainly distributed in the area with slight tool wear. Figure 11G shows Fe which was derived from the workpiece. During the cutting process, due to the severe friction between the chips and the tool, the Fe element of the chip was partly transferred to the tool and thus adhesive wear occurred. The O element is shown in Figure 11H. There was no O in either the cutting tool or the workpiece. Therefore, there was a chemical reaction between oxygen in the air and the element attached to the rake face. W was mainly distributed in the area near the cutting edge ( Figure 11I), which indicated that the surface material of the tool in this area had been polished and the underlying material was exposed. Materials 2020, 13, x FOR PEER REVIEW 14 of 21 edge was serious. There was obvious adhesive on the rake face and there was a large piece of adhesive far away from the tool tip where chips outflowed and the residual chips stuck easily. Figure 11D-F shows the surface coating materials of the tool, which are Ti, Al, and N, respectively. As can be seen from the figure, the three elements were mainly distributed in the area with slight tool wear. Figure 11G shows Fe which was derived from the workpiece. During the cutting process, due to the severe friction between the chips and the tool, the Fe element of the chip was partly transferred to the tool and thus adhesive wear occurred. The O element is shown in Figure 11H. There was no O in either the cutting tool or the workpiece. Therefore, there was a chemical reaction between oxygen in the air and the element attached to the rake face. W was mainly distributed in the area near the cutting edge ( Figure 11I), which indicated that the surface material of the tool in this area had been polished and the underlying material was exposed. The main elements of point P1 in Figure 11B and point P2 in Figure 11C were mapped to Figure 12 by EDS analysis. It can be seen from Figure 12A that the content of W in this area was the highest. Such a result indicates that the surface material of the tool produced serious peeling, exposing the matrix material of the tool. The contents of O, Fe, and Cr were relatively high, which is consistent with the composition of AISI 304 in Table 3. In addition, during the cutting process, adhesive wear and oxidation wear occurred due to the existence of O in the air. As shown in Figure 12B, Fe at P2 was the highest, followed by O, Cr, and W. Such a result manifested in severe adhesive wear as well as oxidation wear in this area. The main elements of point P1 in Figure 11B and point P2 in Figure 11C were mapped to Figure 12 by EDS analysis. It can be seen from Figure 12A that the content of W in this area was the highest. Such a result indicates that the surface material of the tool produced serious peeling, exposing the matrix material of the tool. The contents of O, Fe, and Cr were relatively high, which is consistent with the composition of AISI 304 in Table 3. In addition, during the cutting process, adhesive wear and oxidation wear occurred due to the existence of O in the air. As shown in Figure 12B, Fe at P2 was the highest, followed by O, Cr, and W. Such a result manifested in severe adhesive wear as well as oxidation wear in this area. As a comparison, we also performed the SEM and EDS analysis on the rake face of Tool B (Figures 13 and 14). By comparing Figure 11A,B and Figure 13A,B, it was found that the area near the cutting edge of Tool B was narrower and nonuniform. Furthermore, there was no large adhesive on the rake face and there was a smaller adhesive wear area compared with Tool A. We noted from Figure 13D-F that the distribution of Ti, Al, and N on the rake face of Tool B was denser and the coverage was wider compared with Tool A (Figure 11D-F), which indicated that the wear of the tool coating was less. Moreover, the Fe and O distribution of Tool A was more compact than Tool B with a higher area ratio (Figures 11 and 13G,H), indicating that adhesive wear and oxidation wear of Tool A were more serious. Materials 2020, 13, x FOR PEER REVIEW 15 of 21 Figure 12. Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) analysis results of corresponding points P1 and P2 in Figure 11. As a comparison, we also performed the SEM and EDS analysis on the rake face of Tool B (Figures 13 and 14). By comparing Figure 11A,B and Figure 13A,B, it was found that the area near the cutting edge of Tool B was narrower and nonuniform. Furthermore, there was no large adhesive on the rake face and there was a smaller adhesive wear area compared with Tool A. We noted from Figure 13D-F that the distribution of Ti, Al, and N on the rake face of Tool B was denser and the coverage was wider compared with Tool A (Figure 11D-F), which indicated that the wear of the tool coating was less. Moreover, the Fe and O distribution of Tool A was more compact than Tool B with a higher area ratio (Figures 11 and 13G,H), indicating that adhesive wear and oxidation wear of Tool A were more serious. Compared with the distribution of element W ( Figures 11I and 13I), the distribution width of W in Tool B was narrower, sparse, and fluctuant. Such a result resulted in lower surface wear of the material at the bottom of Tool B, and thus the explosion of the bottom material was less than that of Tool A. Then, we mapped the main elements of point P1 in Figure 13B and point P2 in Figure 13C to Figure 14 with EDS analysis. As shown at point P1 of Tool B in Figure 14A, Ti and Al (coating materials of the tool) accounted for a large proportion. In contrast, the highest content of element at the corresponding point of Tool A was W ( Figure 12A). Other elements, like O, Fe, and Cr, also occupied a large proportion. Therefore, we can conclude that this area was slightly worn and there was slight adhesive wear and oxidation wear for Tool B. Similarly, the lower content of Fe and Cr shown in Figure 14B also manifested in lower degree of adhesive wear in Tool B. The micro-groove design of Tool B changed the tool-chip contact state from full contact to incomplete contact, resulting in decreases of the stress, cutting forces, temperatures, and tool wear. Comparison of Adhesive Wear and Oxidation Wear of the Flank Faces of Tool A and Tool B SEM and EDS analysis results of the flank face of Tool A are shown in Figures 15 and 16. From Figure 15A-C, it can be seen that the surface material near the cutting edge of the flank face of Tool A was seriously peeled. Near the tip of the tool, the size of the adhesive was larger, which led to serious wear. Figure 15D-F shows the distribution area and density of the coating material of Ti, Al, and N, respectively. We found that the wear near the cutting edge of the flank face was serious. Moreover, we noted from Figure 15A,G,H that Fe and O were mainly distributed on whitening and uneven areas of the flank face, which was the mixed zone of adhesive wear and oxidation wear. In Figure 16I, W mainly distributed in the area near the cutting edge, indicating that the tool coating was almost polished to show the underlying material. We also chose two points (P1 and P2) on the flank face of Tool A with serious wear for analysis by EDS (Figure 16). Concentrations of Fe, Cr, and O were relatively high for both points, which is consistent with the intuitive result shown in Figure 15A that the adhesive wear and oxidation wear at this point were serious. Compared with the distribution of element W (Figures 11I and 13I), the distribution width of W in Tool B was narrower, sparse, and fluctuant. Such a result resulted in lower surface wear of the material at the bottom of Tool B, and thus the explosion of the bottom material was less than that of Tool A. Then, we mapped the main elements of point P1 in Figure 13B and point P2 in Figure 13C to Figure 14 with EDS analysis. As shown at point P1 of Tool B in Figure 14A, Ti and Al (coating materials of the tool) accounted for a large proportion. In contrast, the highest content of element at the corresponding point of Tool A was W ( Figure 12A). Other elements, like O, Fe, and Cr, also occupied a large proportion. Therefore, we can conclude that this area was slightly worn and there was slight adhesive wear and oxidation wear for Tool B. Similarly, the lower content of Fe and Cr shown in Figure 14B also manifested in lower degree of adhesive wear in Tool B. The micro-groove design of Tool B changed the tool-chip contact state from full contact to incomplete contact, resulting in decreases of the stress, cutting forces, temperatures, and tool wear. Figure 15A-C, it can be seen that the surface material near the cutting edge of the flank face of Tool A was seriously peeled. Near the tip of the tool, the size of the adhesive was larger, which led to serious wear. Figure 15D-F shows the distribution area and density of the coating material of Ti, Al, and N, respectively. We found that the wear near the cutting edge of the flank face was serious. Moreover, we noted from Figure 15A,G,H that Fe and O were mainly distributed on whitening and uneven areas of the flank face, which was the mixed zone of adhesive wear and oxidation wear. In Figure 16I, W mainly distributed in the area near the cutting edge, indicating that the tool coating was almost polished to show the underlying material. We also chose two points (P1 and P2) on the flank face of Tool A with serious wear for analysis by EDS ( Figure 16). Concentrations of Fe, Cr, and O were relatively high for both points, which is consistent with the intuitive result shown in Figure 15A that the adhesive wear and oxidation wear at this point were serious. uneven areas of the flank face, which was the mixed zone of adhesive wear and oxidation wear. In Figure 16I, W mainly distributed in the area near the cutting edge, indicating that the tool coating was almost polished to show the underlying material. We also chose two points (P1 and P2) on the flank face of Tool A with serious wear for analysis by EDS (Figure 16). Concentrations of Fe, Cr, and O were relatively high for both points, which is consistent with the intuitive result shown in Figure 15A that the adhesive wear and oxidation wear at this point were serious. In contrast, we also show the results of the flank face of Tool B with SEM and EDS analysis in Figures 17 and 18. It can be seen from Figure 17A-C that the surface material in the cutting-edge neighborhood of the flank face of Tool B was badly worn. However, compared with the corresponding position of Tool A, the wear width was narrower with weaker adhesive. By comparing distributions of Ti, Al, and N between Tool A and B, the coating material distribution area of Tool B was larger and the concentration was higher. Such a result indicates that the abrasive wear of Tool B was less. Furthermore, the sparse distribution of Fe and O on Tool B as compared to that of Tool A also resulted in a slight degree of adhesive wear and oxidation wear ( Figure 17G,H). We also analyzed two worn points on Tool B using EDS ( Figure 18). Concentrations of Fe, O, and Cr at both P1 and P2 on Tool A ( Figure 16) were higher than those on Tool B (Figure 18), indicating that the adhesive and oxidative wear of Tool A were more serious as compared with Tool B. In contrast, we also show the results of the flank face of Tool B with SEM and EDS analysis in Figures 17 and 18. It can be seen from Figure 17A-C that the surface material in the cutting-edge neighborhood of the flank face of Tool B was badly worn. However, compared with the corresponding position of Tool A, the wear width was narrower with weaker adhesive. By comparing distributions of Ti, Al, and N between Tool A and B, the coating material distribution area of Tool B was larger and the concentration was higher. Such a result indicates that the abrasive wear of Tool B was less. Furthermore, the sparse distribution of Fe and O on Tool B as compared to that of Tool A also resulted in a slight degree of adhesive wear and oxidation wear ( Figure 17G,H). was less. Furthermore, the sparse distribution of Fe and O on Tool B as compared to that of Tool A also resulted in a slight degree of adhesive wear and oxidation wear ( Figure 17G,H). We also analyzed two worn points on Tool B using EDS ( Figure 18). Concentrations of Fe, O, and Cr at both P1 and P2 on Tool A ( Figure 16) were higher than those on Tool B (Figure 18), indicating that the adhesive and oxidative wear of Tool A were more serious as compared with Tool B. The friction of the tool-chip area was mainly composed of two parts. The first was the internal friction area near the tool tip which was affected by high temperature and high pressure. The material at the bottom of the chip had serious plastic deformations and was bonded to the material at the rake face of the tools. This area was also known as the adhesive friction area, and it had great friction resistance. The second was the tool-chip contact area, which was far away from the external friction area of the tool tip. The pressure and temperature in this area were lower and subject to Coulomb's law of friction, known as the sliding friction area. The placement of the micro-groove of Tool B changed the contact state between the tool and the chip. As can be seen from Figure 19, due to the existence of the micro-groove, when the chip flowed into the micro-groove from the rake face, the chip flow suffered less resistance and the chip deformation was smaller. Chips did not come in contact with the bottom of the micro-groove while flowing through the micro-groove. When chips were about to flow out of the micro-groove, they were hindered by the micro-groove edge which was far away from the main cutting edge near the tip of the tool; thus, the chips curled out. At the same time, the micro-groove created a space for chips to flow freely. We made 2-dimentional simulation of tool A and tool B with Deform V11.2. The parameter setting and material model are consistent with the tool temperature simulation. As can be seen in Figure 19, the tool-chip contact length of Tool B was reduced in comparison to Tool A. The average chipping thickness of Tool A was 0.36 mm, whereas the average chipping thickness of Tool B was 0.25 mm. The chipping thickness of Tool B decreased with the decrease of the energy consumed by chip deformation. Therefore, the overall cutting resistance, the cutting energy, the cutting temperature, and the tool wear of Tool B decreased. This decrease was compared with that of Tool A. We also analyzed two worn points on Tool B using EDS ( Figure 18). Concentrations of Fe, O, and Cr at both P1 and P2 on Tool A ( Figure 16) were higher than those on Tool B (Figure 18), indicating that the adhesive and oxidative wear of Tool A were more serious as compared with Tool B. The friction of the tool-chip area was mainly composed of two parts. The first was the internal friction area near the tool tip which was affected by high temperature and high pressure. The material at the bottom of the chip had serious plastic deformations and was bonded to the material at the rake face of the tools. This area was also known as the adhesive friction area, and it had great friction resistance. The second was the tool-chip contact area, which was far away from the external friction area of the tool tip. The pressure and temperature in this area were lower and subject to Coulomb's law of friction, known as the sliding friction area. The placement of the micro-groove of Tool B changed the contact state between the tool and the chip. As can be seen from Figure 19, due to the existence of the micro-groove, when the chip flowed into the micro-groove from the rake face, the chip flow suffered less resistance and the chip deformation was smaller. Chips did not come in contact with the bottom of the micro-groove while flowing through the micro-groove. When chips were about to flow out of the micro-groove, they were hindered by the micro-groove edge which was far away from the main cutting edge near the tip of the tool; thus, the chips curled out. At the same time, the micro-groove created a space for chips to flow freely. Due to the existence of micro-groove on the rake surface of tool B, the contact area between the tool and the chip is actually reduced, thus reducing the friction of the chip flowing through the rake surface as well as the cutting temperature of the tool. High temperature is the most important factor for adhesive wear and oxidation wear. Therefore, the adhesive wear and oxidation wear of the rake and flank surfaces of tool B are less than that of tool A. Kang et al., by laser processing different texture on the rake face of tool, found in the cutting process, the cutting force is reduced and the cutting stability is improved. Thomas et al., using the indentation method to make texture on the rake surface, found that micro-texture reduces cutting force and cutting temperature and tool wear. These are consistent with the structure of this paper. Conclusions To improve tool wear performance, a micro-groove was designed on the rake face of the tool. We compared the cutting performance of AISI 304 with Tool A and the micro-groove turning Tool B, both theoretically and experimentally. Results show that placement of the micro-groove made Tool B have better cutting performance. Specific conclusions are as follows. Compared with Tool A, the placement of the micro-groove made the rake angle of Tool B increase whereas the friction angle, the cutting force, and the cutting temperature decreased. According to the surface morphology, the abrasive wear of the rake and flank faces of Tool B was less than that of Tool A. At the same time, the distributions of the main elements and the energy spectrum analysis of the local areas show that the adhesive wear and oxidation wear of Tool B were also less than those of Tool A. Due to the existence of the micro-groove on the rake face of Tool B, the tool-chip contact state changed and the length of the tool-chip friction zone was reduced. Meanwhile, it provided more stretching space for chip movement and reduced the energy consumed by chip deformation. We made 2-dimentional simulation of tool A and tool B with Deform V11.2. The parameter setting and material model are consistent with the tool temperature simulation. As can be seen in Figure 19, the tool-chip contact length of Tool B was reduced in comparison to Tool A. The average chipping thickness of Tool A was 0.36 mm, whereas the average chipping thickness of Tool B was 0.25 mm. The chipping thickness of Tool B decreased with the decrease of the energy consumed by chip deformation. Therefore, the overall cutting resistance, the cutting energy, the cutting temperature, and the tool wear of Tool B decreased. This decrease was compared with that of Tool A. Due to the existence of micro-groove on the rake surface of tool B, the contact area between the tool and the chip is actually reduced, thus reducing the friction of the chip flowing through the rake surface as well as the cutting temperature of the tool. High temperature is the most important factor for adhesive wear and oxidation wear. Therefore, the adhesive wear and oxidation wear of the rake and flank surfaces of tool B are less than that of tool A. Kang et al., by laser processing different texture on the rake face of tool, found in the cutting process, the cutting force is reduced and the cutting stability is improved. Thomas et al., using the indentation method to make texture on the rake surface, found that micro-texture reduces cutting force and cutting temperature and tool wear. These are consistent with the structure of this paper. Conclusions To improve tool wear performance, a micro-groove was designed on the rake face of the tool. We compared the cutting performance of AISI 304 with Tool A and the micro-groove turning Tool B, both theoretically and experimentally. Results show that placement of the micro-groove made Tool B have better cutting performance. Specific conclusions are as follows. Compared with Tool A, the placement of the micro-groove made the rake angle of Tool B increase whereas the friction angle, the cutting force, and the cutting temperature decreased. According to the surface morphology, the abrasive wear of the rake and flank faces of Tool B was less than that of Tool A. At the same time, the distributions of the main elements and the energy spectrum analysis of the local areas show that the adhesive wear and oxidation wear of Tool B were also less than those of Tool A. Due to the existence of the micro-groove on the rake face of Tool B, the tool-chip contact state changed and the length of the tool-chip friction zone was reduced. Meanwhile, it provided more stretching space for chip movement and reduced the energy consumed by chip deformation. Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest. |
package app;
import javafx.scene.control.Alert;
import javafx.stage.Modality;
import javafx.stage.Stage;
public class Notifier extends CustomApp {
private final Exception exception;
private final Alert.AlertType alertType;
public Notifier(Exception exception, Alert.AlertType alertType) throws Exception {
super("notify-view.fxml", alertType.name(), 380, 380, 280, 280);
this.alertType = alertType;
this.exception = exception;
start(new Stage());
}
public Exception getException() {
return exception;
}
@Override
protected void show() {
this.setPositionToCentral();
this.stage.initModality(Modality.APPLICATION_MODAL);
this.stage.showAndWait();
}
}
|
// Copyright 2020-2020 The Mandarine.TS Framework authors. All rights reserved. MIT license.
import { Test, DenoAsserts, Orange } from "../../mod.ts";
import { PropertiesUtils } from "../../../main-core/utils/propertiesUtils.ts";
export class PropertiesUtilsTest {
@Test({
name: "Test parsing properties file",
description: "Should parse properties to a JS object"
})
public testPropertiesParsing() {
const properties = ["mandarine.server.host=127.0.0.1", "mandarine.server.port=8080", "mandarine.enabled=true", "mandarine.auth.data.config.user=andreespirela"];
const propertiesText = properties.join(`\n`);
const parsing = PropertiesUtils.parse(propertiesText);
DenoAsserts.assertEquals({
mandarine: {
server: {
host: "127.0.0.1",
port: 8080
},
enabled: true,
auth: {
data: {
config: {
user: "andreespirela"
}
}
}
}
}, parsing);
}
} |
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