AIDS and Infectious Diseases

CONTENTS

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"What was most significant about the lunar voyage was not that men set foot on the Moon, but that they set eye on the Earth." This statement, by Mr. Norman Cousins, Editor of the Saturday Review, summarizes the most significant aspect of the first departure of humans from the environment in which they were born, and in which they must survive. Looking back at the Earth from the Moon, the view is both splendid and overwhelming. A small blue ball in the vastness of black space, dotted with millions of marvelous stars; an oasis that we must understand and protect. For, if one searches the heavens, one will find no other island for life as we understand it. If we humans do not protect and nurture this environment, it will disappear—just as quickly as the Earth can disappear from behind the outstretched thumb of a man on the Moon.

As the world continues to grow economically, more and more "power" is required to sustain this growth. These increased power requirements are currently being supplied mainly by the increased use of fossil fuels. Scientific consensus concludes that the use of fossil fuels for power is a primary cause of global warming and the consequential deterioration of the environment. Nuclear power is the only viable alternative to the increased use of fossil fuels for power. However, the increased use of nuclear power produces increased nuclear waste, the disposal of which is a serious environmental hazard. A method of permanent disposal of nuclear waste, especially high-level waste, is currently not available.

The present approach to "permanent" disposal of nuclear waste is to deposit it underground, or "geologic disposal." This approach is neither permanent nor safe. Among other problems, such disposal sites must be maintained for tens of thousands of years; they are subject to changing natural conditions; and they must be protected from theft and terrorism.

Rather than attempting to store high-level nuclear waste in Earth facilities for extremely long periods, this hazardous high-level nuclear waste can be permanently removed from the Earth by launching it into space. Studies by NASA have confirmed the feasibility, both technical and economic, of launching "safe canisters" of high-level nuclear waste into a space trajectory that departs the solar system or is sent directly to the Sun. This is the only known method of permanent disposal of nuclear waste.

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the concept of nuclear waste disposal in space and to describe the activities necessary to develop a comprehensive "case" for the disposal of nuclear waste in space. The activities necessary to define the case for nuclear waste disposal in space will be defined in the form of a series of feasibility analyses, the objectives of which will be presented in the form of "tasks" associated with a general statement of work. The statement of work will then present the objectives and supporting rationale for a subsequent major program to actually dispose nuclear waste in space. The subsequent "Nuclear Waste Disposal Program" (NWDP) will be planned and implemented independently.

The tasks (or feasibility analyses) will address each of the major issues that would or could be involved in implementing a program of nuclear waste disposal in space. Such issues include scientific (e.g., nuclear power and storage); technical (e.g., launching into space); economic (e.g., cost); societal (e.g., public acceptance); political (e.g., participation and contributions by nations); etc. These studies and analyses will be conducted by universities and other academic institutions insofar as is practical.

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Game theoretic analysis of strategic conflicts is extended to interactions between two or more adversaries with realistic target sets. Current offensive configurations are shown to be stable, insensitive to reductions in offensive forces, deployment of limited defenses, and the exchange of offenses for defenses. The transition from adversarial to cooperative interaction improves stability monotonically. The shift of targeting to high value targets stabilizes trilateral configurations, in which defenses lead to a balance between large and small sides resembling a small scale version of that between large sides.

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This paper is aimed at the discussion of the historical path of Lithuania, at the mathematical expression of its economical and political changes. The main attention is paid to the last decade, to the period of restoration of its independence and transformation of the Soviet type state regulated economy to the free market one as well as of the authoritarian political regime to the democracy. The paper is mainly based on books^1,2,3.

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The erosion process of the Black Sea Romanian coastal zone is only a part of an entire Black Sea geomorphologic complex process. Consequently, this paper presents initially the general aspects of the Black Sea coastal zone, the international ICZM concepts with key elements, then, focusing on the Romanian Black Sea coastal zone, general presentation of the erosion aspects, and some proposed actions to be taken, for rehabilitation.

In general, it would be concluded that hydro technical constructions on the Romanian littoral had a negative impact, except some defense works initiated for the protection of the Mangalia, Jupiter and Constanta shoreline. At present, there are many urgent problems to be solved, but in a coordinated manner.

The main idea is that getting back to the initial status of the littoral is actually impossible, so the future efforts have to be oriented to preserve what we have now and to stop the destructive actions. For such a strategy it is necessary to initiate a coordinated coastal zone management system, possibly to be developed in the ongoing process for Romania to join the European Community.

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River basins and groundwater aquifers which cross international boundaries present increased challenges to effective water management, where hydrologic needs are often overwhelmed by political considerations. While the potential for paralyzing disputes are especially high in these basins, the record of violence is actually greater within the boundaries of a nation. Moreover, history is rich with examples of water acting as a catalyst to dialog and cooperation, even among especially contentious riparians.

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We continue consideration of ways-and-means for creating, in an evolutionary, ever-more-powerful manner, a continually-updated data-base of salient atmospheric properties sufficient for finite differenced integration-based, high-fidelity weather prediction over intervals of 2-3 weeks, leveraging the 10¹⁴ FLOPS digital computing systems now coming into existence.

A constellation comprised of 10⁶-10⁹ small atmospheric sampling systems – high-tech superpressure balloons carrying early 21^st century semiconductor devices, drifting with the local winds over the meteorological spectrum of pressure-altitudes – that assays all portions of the troposphere and lower stratosphere remains the central feature of the proposed system. We suggest that these devices should be active-signaling, rather than passive-transponding, as we had previously proposed only for the ground- and aquatic-situated sensors of this system.

Instead of periodic interrogation of the intra-atmospheric transponder population by constellation of sophisticated small satellites in low Earth orbit, we now propose to retrieve information from the instrumented balloon constellation by existing satellite telephony systems, acting as cellular tower-nodes in a global cellular telephony system whose 'user set' is the atmospheric-sampling and surface-level monitoring constellations. We thereby leverage the huge investment in cellular (satellite) telephony and GPS technologies, with large technical and economic gains.

This proposal minimizes sponsor forward commitment along its entire programmatic trajectory, and moreover may return data of weather-predictive value soon after field activities commence. We emphasize its high near-term value for making better mesoscale, relatively short-term weather predictions with computing-intensive means, and its great long-term utility in enhancing the meteorological basis for global change predictive studies.

We again note that adverse impacts of weather involve continuing costs of the order of 1% of GDP, a large fraction of which could be retrieved if high-fidelity predictions of two weeks' forward applicability were available. These ~$10² B annual savings dwarf the <$1 B costs of operating a rational, long-range weather prediction system of the type proposed.

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CEP, as an internationally supported inter-governmental regional environmental initiative, has considerably contributed in establishing a regional dialogue to safeguard the heavily stressed environment of the Caspian Sea. It has been successful in engaging the international and the national experts in an undertaking to diagnose the major environmental issues of the Caspian, to identify their root causes and to suggest remedial and preventive measures. CEP is however impacted by daunting challenges, most of which are of a political and economic nature. To succeed, CEP would need to continue beyond the present phase with enhanced international financial and technical assistance. Most problems are of a transboundary nature, which require that assistance is allowed to cross over visible and non-visible political boundaries.

The Caspian Sea is located in a region of high environmental stress resulting from anthropogenic effects of modern times. On the other hand, the region also shows signs of large climatic changes throughout its ancient and modern history, best reflected by the sea-level changes. Prominent interannual/interdecadal signals and large scale controls are evident. Only a better understanding of these changes through combined use of observations and modelling can provide the essential knowledge base and foresight for predicting the expected changes in the future.

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The first international workshop dedicated to the determination of geophysical properties and physical characterization of NEOs was held in Erice in June 2001. The goals were to discuss the science and technology requirements in these fields for the coming decades. Four quantities were identified for which measurements from NEOs are critically needed: (1) the mass, (2) the mass distribution, (3) material strengths, and (4) the internal structure. Global (whole body) properties, such as material strengths and internal structure, can be determined best from the analyses of penetrating waves: Artificially initiated seismology and multifrequency reflection and transmission radio tomography. Seismology provides the best geophysical (material strengths) data of NEOs composed of consolidated materials while radio tomography provides the best geological data (e.g., the state of fracture) of nonconducting media. Thus, the two methods are complementary: Seismology is best for stony and metallic asteroids, while radio tomography is best for comet nuclei and carbonaceous asteroids. The three main conclusions are: (1) remote sensing for physical characterization should be increased, (2) several dedicated NEO missions should be prepared for geophysical and geological investigations, and (3) it is prudent to develop and prove the technology and learn how to make geophysical measurements on NEOs now.

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The WFS PMP #7 met on the occasion of the 26^th Session of the International Seminars on Planetary Emergencies to review and plan its activities. Panel representatives joined in discussions with the water resources and extreme meteorological events panels to plan joint activities.

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The workshop was held on 24-25 August 2001, and addressed four issues: (1) review of the current knowledge of the Caspian Sea environment; (2) identification of unresolved environmental issues in the Caspian Sea; (3) current and planned environmental activities in the Caspian Sea; (4) possible WFS/World Lab future actions.

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Monitoring system of Caspian Sea of former Soviet Union formed during 1970^th and consists of net of different type of stations covered all investigated area. For measuring of basic hydrometeorological parameters, like temperature, salinity, density, air conditions, insolation, standard hydrochemistry etc., stations at so-called "century transects" mainly were used. Eight transects crossed the Volga delta (4) and Central Caspian area (4) several time a year. For estimation of pollution level in the sea waters the OGSN stations were served. In the northern shallow waters the position of these stations usually are the same with points at century transects, in contrary with the Central Caspian where they mainly are not coincide. Also many OGSN stations placed in coastal waters in vicinity of large cities or estuarine regions where pollution from the land is most visible. The additional information could be obtained from the net of sea-level points and coastal stations in estuaries and riverbanks.

Monitoring of pollution in the Volga estuarine zone beside standard observation usually includes ammonium, Fe, Cu, detergents, phenols, dissolved organic matter, petroleum hydrocarbons. Heavy metals and petroleum hydrocarbons usually were measured in sea water and sediments. During the additional marine expeditions and other research investigations in the waters influenced by Volga the number of measured parameters and spatial position of station could be varied in a wide range.

In Dagestan coastal waters and in Central Caspian usually during ship expeditions at the monitoring stations the ammonium, phenols, organic contaminants and petroleum hydrocarbons were estimated for times per year during last three decades. The temporal variations of all measured pollutants, seasonal and interannual, and spatial distributions in 8 coastal and estuarine areas of Dagestan were presented as figures and tables. This data allow concluding that the level of pollution in the coastal waters slightly decreased in all investigated areas and strongly depended mainly from Volga output and less from the local sources.

SEMINAR PARTICIPANTS