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The cutoff of food, water, and fuel imposed on Gaza has created dire conditions for the Palestinians there in just the last six weeks. Soon, they could be starved to death.The trickle of aid that has been allowed in under international pressure is not nearly enough to sustain the civilian population. According to the World Food Program, only 10% of the necessary food is entering the Gaza Strip, and the people there now face an "immediate possibility of starvation." The WFP also warns that the "food infrastructure in Gaza is no longer functional," and what little food is available is being sold at inflated prices and much of it cannot be used because people have no means to cook it. There is a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding before our eyes in Gaza. People are not just starving, they are being starved, and it is happening with the support of our government.Human Rights Watch and legal scholars say Israel is committing war crimes by waging a "war of starvation" against civilians in Gaza. Insofar as Washington continues to assist Israel's military campaign and blockade, it is helping to enable it. The meager amounts of humanitarian aid that the Biden administration boasts about facilitating are a drop in the bucket of what the population needs, and at current rates they cannot stave off large-scale loss of innocent life. The need for a ceasefire and an emergency relief effort is undeniable and Washington's resistance to it is a potential death sentence for thousands of people. Starvation has been used as a weapon with disturbing frequency in several conflicts over the last decade from Syria and Yemen to Tigray and South Sudan. Governments typically use economic warfare and physical blockades to achieve their ends. The current blockade of Gaza involves both by effectively shutting down Gaza's economy and cutting it off from outside supplies. The forced starvation of a civilian population is a form of collective punishment. Israel has an obligation under the Fourth Geneva Convention "of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population." The Israeli government is obviously not fulfilling that obligation, and instead it has been doing the opposite. It is not surprising that President Biden had nothing serious to say about any of this in his recent op-ed in The Washington Post. The president acknowledged that many innocent Palestinians have been killed in the war, but he said nothing about those responsible for killing them. Biden insists that there must be "no siege or blockade" while both are ongoing. He mentioned no consequences if the Israeli government ignores his list of things that "must" not happen. The Biden administration may have "called for respecting international humanitarian law," but it is not acting to uphold it and it is not holding violators accountable.The president has once again rejected the option of a ceasefire: "As long as Hamas clings to its ideology of destruction, a cease-fire is not peace." This fails to take seriously the devastating consequences that allowing the war to rage on will have for all parties. No one imagines that a ceasefire will resolve the conflict or immediately create conditions for a permanent settlement, but it is imperative for protecting the lives and health of millions of people facing death from starvation, disease, and conflict. As the political scientist Sarah Parkinson explained in Foreign Affairs, "A cease-fire is the only politically reasonable, security-enhancing, and morally defensible policy to advocate, especially if Washington has any hope of remaining a respected player in the Middle East." Opposing a ceasefire in this war is a profound strategic and moral error that will cost the United States dearly in the months and years to come. Biden stresses that the U.S. is aiding Israel in its self-defense, but self-defense does not give a state the unlimited right to do anything it wants. Adil Ahmad Haque wrote an incisive article on self-defense and proportionality in Just Security earlier this month, in which he said this: "Under the law of self-defense, even a legitimate aim must be set aside if it is outweighed by the harmful effects of the force necessary to achieve it. Even if Israel's right to self-defense is engaged, its current exercise of that right is disproportionate."If this war were happening almost anywhere else and if it didn't involve a U.S. client state, it is very likely that our government would insist on the necessity of a ceasefire and U.S. officials would be repeating that there is no military solution. It is only when the U.S. or a U.S.-backed government is fighting that Washington sees no merit in adhering to international law. Unfortunately, this looks like the U.S. is least interested in stopping the wars over which it has considerable influence, and it is most vocal in demanding ceasefires in wars where it has little or no clout. If millions of people were facing an immediate threat of starvation in some other conflict, the U.S. would be appealing to the belligerents to lay down their arms and to do everything possible to facilitate the delivery of life-saving aid. That is exactly what our government should be doing now in this war. Brief pauses in the fighting will not be enough to ensure the safe, consistent delivery of aid.Acting in self-defense doesn't free a government of its obligations under international law, and self-defense isn't a catch-all excuse for violating the law. Some political and military goals can't be reached at an acceptable cost. The harmful effects of waging this war are already too great to justify continuing it, and they will only get worse the longer that this war is allowed to continue.

U.S. forces launched a third strike against Iran-linked groups on Sunday, the latest in an increasingly destructive series of exchanges that have cast a new light on the continued U.S. troop presence in the Middle East. American aircraft struck a weapons storage facility and command-and-control center used by Iran-backed groups in Syria, according to officials. "Within the last two hours, the U.S. has taken precision defensive strikes against two sites in Syria," an official told ABC News. The two structures were located near the eastern Syrian cities of Mayadin and Abu Kamal, according to statements issued on Sunday by the Department of Defense and U.S. Central Command (CENTOM). "The President has no higher priority than the safety of U.S. personnel, and he directed today's action to make clear that the United States will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests," Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement. Up to seven "Iranian proxy fighters" were killed at one of the two locations struck by U.S. warplanes, according to Jennifer Griffin, chief national security correspondent for Fox News, citing a senior defense official. This is the third such strike since October 26, reflecting a continued effort by the U.S. to retaliate against Iran-linked groups that the White House says are responsible for a spate of ongoing rocket and drone attacks against U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. sent forces including two carrier strike groups headlined by the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, squadrons consisting of F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft and A-10 close-air-support (CAS), and the USS Bataan Amphibious Ready Group to the region following the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and subsequent outbreak of war in Gaza. High-ranking officers including a Marine three-star general were reportedly sent to help advise Israeli leadership as it proceeds with its campaign and another 2,000 U.S. personnel were ordered to prepare to deploy last month. Iranian leaders have unsurprisingly taken a strong policy stance in favor of Hamas, though the full extent of their foreknowledge of and support for the October 7 attack remains unclear. Reports citing U.S. intelligence findings suggest that senior Iranian officials were surprised by the attack, undermining or at least heavily complicating claims of direct Iranian involvement. Nevertheless, Tehran has been accused of mobilizing its robust network of regional proxies to launch scores of attacks against American personnel and infrastructure. U.S. assets have been attacked at least 52 times by Iran-linked groups since October 17, according to officials. A total of fifty-six service members have been injured according to numbers provided by the Pentagon, with over two dozen suffering traumatic brain injuries. Washington has responded to these attacks with a mix of warnings by top officials, which have gone wholly unheeded, and retaliatory strikes. The Sunday strikes came shortly on the heels of airstrikes conducted by two F-15 fighter jets against Iran-linked facilities in Syria earlier last week. These two latest rounds of U.S. strikes come just two weeks after a similar spate of operations targeting facilities in eastern Syria that officials say were "used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups." The strikes on October 26, which the Pentagon said were not related to "the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas," were partly intended to deter Iran from coordinating further attacks on U.S. personnel. Yet attacks on American troops have not only continued but intensified in recent weeks, with Iran-backed militants reportedly assaulting U.S. bases with drones carrying even larger payloads.Growing risks to American service members and concerns that these continued exchanges could trigger a direct military confrontation between the U.S. and Iran have spurred new perspectives on the costs and benefits of the continued military presence in the Middle East. The 2,500 and 900 troops in Iraq and Syria, respectively, are ostensibly there to prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State, but the rationale behind this presence has come under scrutiny. "If a U.S. ground presence in Iraq and Syria were absolutely necessary to achieve a core U.S. security interest, then perhaps these risks would be tolerable. But this is hardly the case," Defense Priorities (DEFP) fellow Daniel DePetris wrote in a release on November 9. "ISIS lost its territorial caliphate more than four years ago and is now relegated to a low-grade, rural insurgency that local actors can contain. The U.S. military presence is not only unnecessary, but also a dangerous tripwire for a wider war." The continued deployments put service members at constant risk, especially in the context of heightened regional tensions stemming from the Israel-Hamas war, and serve neither clear nor achievable policy aims, argued Justin Logan, the Cato Institute's director of defense and foreign policy studies."Attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria will no doubt continue—the solution is to remove U.S. forces which remain as targets only because they're within range of these local militias," said a DEFP explainer published earlier this month, suggesting that U.S. troops in stationed within striking distance of local militants be redeployed to better-defended positions in the Middle-East. American troops have reportedly been attacked a staggering four times within less than a day of Sunday's airstrike, sending the clearest signal yet that retaliatory strikes have not had their intended deterring effect. As the Gaza crisis roils on, the dangers confronting U.S. troops — and, with them, calls to reconsider the tools and goals of American power projection in the Middle East—will likely intensify.

Europe's top diplomats made history this week when they made a surprise trip to Kyiv for a meeting aimed at projecting a unified front in support of Ukraine's war with Russia and bid to join the European Union.
"It is the first time that we met in a candidate country," said Josep Borrell, the bloc's top foreign policy official. "And unfortunately, it was also the first time that the foreign ministers of the European Union met in a country at war."
"The EU remains united in its support to Ukraine," Borrell continued. "I don't see any member state folding on their engagement."
Shortly after the summit, which included 23 of the EU's 27 foreign ministers, Ukraine got another piece of good news when reports emerged that Kyiv could start official accession talks by the end of this year.
But, far away from the spotlight, a number of obstacles remain before Ukraine joins the powerful bloc. The first challenge is to meet the EU's standards for democracy and good governance. As of August, Ukraine had only met two out of seven legal benchmarks, and it remains unclear how Kyiv will make progress on the remaining five amid a brutal, all-out war with Russia.
If Ukraine manages to surpass that hurdle, it will face the arduous task of convincing each and every member of the consensus-driven bloc that Kyiv should become a member.
Slovakia will have little appetite for making concessions to Ukraine given the results of the country's recent elections, in which a leftist party opposed to arming Kyiv returned to power. Robert Fico, Slovakia's likely new prime minister, said last month that it is "illusory to deal with" the question of Ukraine joining the EU amid a "sharp military conflict."
There is, however, one factor working in Ukraine's favor: Fico had a history of pragmatism during previous stints as prime minister, leaving open the possibility that he could change his tack on Kyiv for the right price.
Reports also indicate that Hungary, led by firebrand Prime Minister Viktor Orban, will not back Ukraine's bid for free. In fact, EU officials are now considering unlocking as much as $13 billion in handouts that the bloc has withheld from Budapest due to concerns that Orban has reduced the independence of the country's courts. In return, EU officials hope Hungary will approve aid to Ukraine and back the effort to open accession talks.The final obstacle will be convincing the EU's smaller states to accept a fundamental shift in the economic balance of the bloc. Ukraine would get nearly $200 billion from the bloc over seven years, forcing some member states to go from net receivers of EU largesse to net payers, according to an EU report leaked to the Financial Times. Kyiv would also become the largest recipient of agricultural subsidies, dropping payments for all other states by about 20 percent.
Despite the long odds, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky remains determined to help his country achieve EU membership. "Our key integration goal is to hammer out a decision to start membership negotiations this year," Zelensky said. "Today, I heard once again at the meetings and negotiations that this is absolutely possible."
In other diplomatic news related to the war in Ukraine:
— The end of Rep. Kevin McCarthy's (R-Calif.) term as speaker of the House could mean the end of U.S. aid to Ukraine, according to Blaise Malley of RS. As Malley notes, all of McCarthy's likely successors have been critical of American aid, and options for bypassing the speaker and forcing a vote on more Ukraine funding would require some Republicans to either break with leadership or do some clever horse trading to convince Kyiv's skeptics. The news comes as public support for aid continues to fall, according to a new Reuters/ Ipsos poll, which found that only 41% of Americans want to continue arming Ukraine, while 35% were opposed and the rest were unsure.
— NATO's top military official warned that "the bottom of the barrel is now visible" when it comes to Western stocks for arming Ukraine, according to CNN. "We give away weapons systems to Ukraine, which is great, and ammunition, but not from full warehouses," said Adm. Rob Bauer.
— Zelensky met with European leaders in Granada, Spain, on Thursday in an effort to bolster support for Ukraine, according to Reuters. "Our joint goal is to ensure the security and stability of our common European home," he said on X, formerly known as Twitter. "We are working together with partners on enhancing the European security architecture, particularly regional security. Ukraine has substantial proposals in this regard."
— Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday that U.S. aid for Ukraine is "irrational," marking a shift in the controversial leader's rhetoric about the war, according to Reuters. "I was just looking at how now they're not authorizing aid for the war in Ukraine," AMLO said. "But how much have they destined for the Ukraine war? $30 to $50 billion for the war, which is the most irrational thing you can have. And damaging." AMLO has previously called for peace talks to end the conflict.
U.S. State Department news:In a Wednesday press conference, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel called on Congress to pass new aid for Ukraine. "We cannot under any circumstances allow America's support for Ukraine to be interrupted," Patel said. "A lapse in support for even a short period of time could make all the difference in the battlefield."

Daniel Raisbeck and Gabriela Calderon de Burgos


For the first time since 1991, Argentina suffers from annual inflation rates above 100 percent. As voters prepare to head to the polls on August 13, the date of the presidential primaries for all parties, a majority thinks—regardless of ideology— that inflation is the country's most pressing problem. Meanwhile, a significant minority—29 percent according to one poll— now considers that the best way to tackle inflation is to get rid of the Argentine peso altogether and adopt the U.S. dollar as the official currency. They are absolutely right.
As we explain in a new briefing paper out today, dollarization works because it deprives the local ruling class of all control over the national currency. This protects ordinary people's purchasing power from the excesses of chronically profligate politicians and often subservient—or simply incompetent—central bankers. Along with Peru, a semi‐​dollarized economy, Latin America's three fully dollarized countries—Panama, Ecuador, and El Salvador—have had the region's lowest inflation levels during the past 20 years (and much longer in the case of Panama). Unlike many countries in the region, the dollarized trio did not see double‐​digit inflation in the aftermath of the Covid‐​19 pandemic. Steve Hanke, a Johns Hopkins University economist, puts it well: dollarization is equivalent to instituting the rule of law in the monetary sphere.
Dollarization is often compared to the convertibility system that Argentina implemented in the 1990s, a monetary regime consisting of the Central Bank maintaining unlimited convertibility between its currency and that which it is pegged to at a fixed exchange rate. That system ultimately fell apart because it deviated from following orthodox rules. But because dollarization simply replaces a local currency with a foreign one, it does not depend on a promise from the political class to abide by a certain set of rules and it has proven much harder to undo. As we explain in our policy brief, this does not imply a country's surrender of its monetary policy to the United States:
"As economist Juan Luis Moreno‐​Villalaz argued in the Cato Journal in 1999, Panama's banks, which have been integrated to the global financial system after a series of liberalization measures in the 1970s, allocate their resources inside or outside the country without major restrictions, adjusting their liquidity according to the local demand for credit or money. Hence, changes in the money supply—which arise from the interplay between local factors and the specific conditions of global credit markets— and not the Federal Reserve, determine Panama's monetary policy. Fed policy affects Panama only to the same extent that it does the rest of the world".

In Argentina, opposition to dollarization comes from critics on both the left and the right. The former usually claim that adopting the dollar is a costly affront to national sovereignty (the cost pertaining to the loss of seigniorage). The latter tend to argue that local technocrats will be left without monetary tools with which to steer the national economy. Neither side has come to terms with the reasons why an overwhelming majority of Panamanians, Ecuadoreans, or Salvadoreans wouldn't dream of ditching the dollar in favor of weak national currencies. In fact, minimal inflation rates are but one benefit of dollarization. The others include far lower interest rates, longer loan periods, and an intrinsic hard budget constraint on governments and parliaments alike.
Despite such advantages, dollarization is certainly no guarantee of fiscal discipline or sustained economic growth, as the recent experience of both Ecuador and El Salvador can attest. Nonetheless, dollarization is worth it simply because it leaves politicians and bureaucrats unable to devalue a local currency or monetize the debt, thereby limiting the magnitude of the potential harm. During the 2010s, radical left‐​wing governments in both El Salvador and Ecuador were unable to get rid of the dollar despite their anti‐​dollarization rhetoric. The pros of dollarization may be difficult to grasp ex‐​ante; once it is instituted, however, dollarization's benefits in daily life are so palpable to a large majority that the greenback has become demagogue‐​proof in a region ripe with demagoguery.
The loss of seigniorage, it turns out, is an infinitesimal price to pay for the advantages of dollarization. Manuel Hinds, a former finance minister in El Salvador, likens giving up seigniorage to paying a small insurance premium for protection against the very high risks of maintaining a local currency. Nor is a lack of large dollar reserves an excuse not to dollarize.
In Ecuador, the mere announcement of dollarization in January of 2000 led to a massive increase in deposits in dollars previously held abroad or under mattresses. This was the case even though the beleaguered banks were offering negative interest rates.
As we discuss in our briefing paper, adopting the dollar can also help solve Argentina's serious problem with short‐​term liquidity notes, the debt of which is more than twice as large as the monetary base. This is yet another reason why Argentina's next government should dollarize, albeit taking seriously the technical challenges that dollarization presents.
The Argentinean peso no longer provides the basic functions of money. Argentineans already use the dollar as a unit of account and—if they can overcome multiple legal obstacles and afford significant transaction costs—as a store of value and a medium of exchange for important transactions. Dollarization would democratize the latter two essential functions of a sound currency.

 The first thing we have learned after one year of war in Ukraine is that there is no evidence that Vladimir Putin wanted to rebuild the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire, or the Warsaw Pact. His present post-imperial concern is to regain and consolidate the Russian Federation's borders. Despite its huge losses of territory, Russia keeps being, by far, the largest country in the world. To prevent its further disbanding, which is always a latent danger due to its ethnic diversity and territorial dispersion, control of its borders is a national security priority.On
the Eastern side, the Russian rulers are strongly interested in maintaining
control over Siberia, which gives the country an exit to the Pacific; thus,
their geopolitical interest in having friendly relations with China. On the
Western side, Russia retains an exit to the Baltic Sea in Saint Petersburg and managed
to keep the enclave of Kaliningrad despite the independence of the three Baltic
republics. The third border, on the South, which affects Crimea, implies having
access to the Black Sea, which is the gate to the Mediterranean and the Suez
Canal.  If
Putin were a new Peter the Great or a new Stalin, a settlement between great powers
would be within reach: a kind of Yalta-Potsdam division of spheres of
influence. But as a country in decline and with repeated loss of territories, it
feels hostility from its neighbors as an existential threat, to which it
responds in exasperated despair.The
invasion has not worked as well for Russia as Putin expected. We have learned
that, in war, it is more difficult to conquest than defend. Some experts in
military history and strategy estimate that for an attack to succeed in
conquering adverse territory, the attacker may need three times more resources,
in troops and weapons, than the defender. This alone can explain why, so far,
the Russians haven't entered Kyiv or Kharkiv, while the Ukrainians have not arrived
in Crimea or most of the Donbas. The
attacker's disadvantage is aggravated by bad management, typical of
authoritarian governments. As stated by strategist Lawrence Freedman, "A lot of
most catastrophic decisions from autocracies is the lack of open and often
critical feedback. They dig themselves in by believing that their advantage is
bold decision-making."In
addition, some crucial potential allies have not joined Russia's adventure. A
few weeks before the invasion, Putin and Xi Jinping signed an agreement for
"unlimited cooperation", but the invasion of Ukraine moved the Chinese to keep their
distance. India's prime minister Narendra Modi told Putin in public that
today's era is not an era of war. From
the current protracted stalemate without a winner, the conflict has a difficult
outcome. In a lecture at Georgetown University a couple of weeks ago, the
director of the CIA, William Burns, said that the next six months will be
critically decisive. He suggested that the alternatives are either a quick
military overturn followed by negotiation and peace or an escalation towards a
long-durable war.A
negotiated peace would require that none of the two sides gets an absolute
defeat, and thus not an absolute victory either. Joe Biden said in Warsaw that
"Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia", which is something different from
saying that it might be a victory for Ukraine or a total defeat for Russia. But
so far, the two parts are still at the rhetoric stage of being maximalist in
their demands with the expectation to be in a strong position if a real
negotiation ever starts. A few months ago, Volodymyr Zelensky explicitly stated
he could accept to concede on Crimea and Donbas, which were the original
objectives of the Russian "special military operation". But now he proclaims
his determination to move back to the borders in 2014 and insists on the
country's unlikely EU and NATO membership. Russia, in turn, verbally rejects
any concession of moving backward. For
an escalation, the Kremlin would need risky domestic moves, including new
conscriptions and mobilizations, to make Russian politics the continuation of
war by other means (which is what Clausewitz meant even if he phrased it the
other way). It is from impatience and distress that Putin toys with using
tactical nuclear weapons over Kyiv –as if he were playing a challenging Chicken
game in which the US would not retaliate to avoid risking World War III. In
turn, Ukraine might be able to sustain its belligerence for as long as the US
and NATO keep providing increasingly effective and lethal weapons, including
drones, tanks, etc. But political calculations and concern about excessive
financial costs may make the US Congress and several European countries lean
toward restricting further overheads.The
conflict has already lasted longer than many regional wars and might degenerate
into attrition. An end might come from changes away from the war fronts. There
should be elections in Russia and Ukraine twelve months from now. They are
uncertain not only about their results, including whether Putin would remain in
power but about whether the elections will be actually held. There will also
be elections in the United States, Great Britain, and the European Parliament
in 2024, when nobody may be interested in running an electoral campaign in the
middle of a war.One
thing we certainly know and can be sure about is that war is the worst human
activity, whose only secure consequence is death and destruction. We have
plenty of information and images about the disasters in Ukraine, but if you
want an additional compelling display of this truth, watch the movie All Quiet on the Western Front, probably the best war movie ever, which strikingly
shows the horrors of it. ---





























Also in Spanish in:La Vanguardia: clickIn English in:Fair Observer clickEurasia Review click One News Page click










 

The twentieth century was the stage for several phenomena which have paved the way for museums to start exhibiting sound and to nurture a vivid and increasing interest in its potentialities. The burgeoning of sound recording technologies stands as a milestone in this respect. These have allowed sound to become a physical object and, hence, new understandings and conceptualizations to emerge. In the wake of these developments, the ways in which museum curators look at sound has gone into a huge reconfiguration. The fact that both new museology and museum practice have been turning their attention to and focus on the visitor has similarly accelerated the curators' interest in sound as a means to build museum exhibitions. One of the latest and most striking instances in this process has been the role of ethnomusicology and sound studies in demonstrating the cultural, social, political, economic and ethical significance of sound thereby stimulating museum's interest in dealing with sound as a mode to build both individual subjectivities and communities in museum settings. The development of audio technologies and digital and multisensorial technologies (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality) also plays a part in this process. These have the merit to provide ways to deal with the elusiveness of sound when exhibited in museum galleries and to facilitate interactions underpinned by rationales such as experience, embodiment, and emplacement. During at least the last ten years, there has been a boost in the development of sound-based multimodal museum practices. These practices, nonetheless, have yet to be mapped, and their representational and experiential (emotional and sensorial) opportunities to be closely analysed. My thesis strives to start closing this gap by taking two analytical steps. Based on the analysis of 69 sound-based multimodal museum exhibitions staged in Europe and in the United States of America, I provide a five-use framework categorizing sound-based multimodal museum practices into sound as a "lecturing" mode, sound as an artefact, sound as "ambiance"/soundtrack, sound as art, and sound as a mode for crowd-curation. The case-study of sound art The Visitors, it unravels the communicative potential of sound for museums. In detail, the analysis stresses how sound and space comingle to articulate individual subjectivities and a sense of "togetherness." The scope of the thesis is clearly multidisciplinary, encompassing ethnomusicology, sound studies, museum studies, and social semiotics. Overall, I seek to contribute towards the development of the study of sound in museums to develop and establish as a cohesive research field. I moreover seek to foster a sensory formation shift from a visual epistemology to one that merges the visual and the auditory. ; O século XX foi palco de vários fenómenos que conduziram a que os museus começassem a expor o som e a demonstrar um interesse crescente pelas suas potencialidades comunicativas. O aparecimento das tecnologias de gravação sonora constitui-se como um momento fundamental neste processo. Ao permitirem que o som se estabeleça enquanto objeto físico, vieram potenciar o aparecimento de novos entendimentos e conceptualizações sobre o som. Na sequência destes acontecimentos, a forma como os curadores de exposições começaram a olhar para o som sofreu grandes alterações. Simultaneamente, o facto de tanto os estudos museológicos como a prática museológica estarem cada vez mais preocupados com o visitante veio também acelerar o interesse dos curadores pelo som como meio para construir exposições museológicas. Os estudos musicais, em particular a etnomusicologia e os estudos de som, tiveram igualmente um papel preponderante: ao demonstrarem o valor cultural, social, político, económico e ético do som vieram claramente estimular o interesse dos curadores em usar o som como material para trabalhar noções de identidade, subjectividade e "comunhão." É ainda de destacar o papel que o desenvolvimento de tecnologias áudio, digitais e multisensoriais (Realidade Virtual, Realidade Aumentada e Realidade Mista) têm no processo. Ao proporcionarem formas de lidar com a imaterialidade do som quando exposto em galerias, vieram também fomentar interações museológicas sustentadas pela experiência. Nos últimos dez anos, os museus têm, pois, assistido ao incrementar das práticas museológicas multimodais baseadas no som. O mapeamento e a categorização destas práticas, bem como o estudo das suas potencialidades narrativas e experienciais (emocionais e sensoriais), no entanto, está claramente por determinar. A minha tese visa dar início ao colmatar desta lacuna através de dois passos: providenciar uma estrutura classificativa das práticas multimodais baseadas em som com base na análise de 69 exposições que tiveram lugar nos últimos dez anos na Europa e nos Estados Unidos da América. A estrutura compreende as seguintes categorias: som como um modo "discursivo," som como artefacto, som como "ambiance"/banda sonora, som como arte, e som como curadoria partilhada. Simultaneamente, dar início ao desvendar do potencial comunicativo do som para exposições museológicas através do estudo de caso de arte sonora The Visitors. A análise deste estudo de caso veio demonstrar que som, em articulação com o espaço permitem trabalhar noções de identidade, subjetividade, e ainda de "comunhão." O âmbito da tese é claramente multidisciplinar e engloba a etnomusicologia, os estudos de som, os estudos museológicos e a semiótica social. De uma forma geral, com a minha dissertação procuro contribuir para o desenvolvimento e o estabelecimento do estudo do uso do som nos museus como um campo de investigação multidisciplinar e coeso. Procuro ainda potenciar uma mudança de formação sensorial nos museus, em particular, estimular a passagem de uma epistemologia visual para uma epistemologia simultaneamente visual e auditiva.

The purpose of the research is to identify the interconnection between migratory crises, which increase the vulnerability of the EU countries to other important factors and have a significant impact on their domestic and foreign policy, and the intensification of hostile activity of the Russian Federation on the continent. The relevance of the article is caused by the need to study the civilizational dimension of the conflict with Russia`s use of migrants as weapon and political manipulation instrument against the USA and the European Union as stronger opponents. The results of the research reveals cause-and-effect links between the aggressive rhetoric, actions and expectations of the Russian Federation toward European countries and the United States in the current issues of increasing global migratory trends. The work detects the Kremlin's involvement in the migratory crisis in Europe in 2015-2016 and analyzes its role in the formation of Syrian refugees flows. It also assesses Russia's involvement in the inspiration of the migratory conflict at the Belarusian-Polish border and characterizes the "necropolitics" of the Lukashenko regime to please Moscow by applying pressure on foreign nationals and the phenomenon of "weaponized migration". This article explains the reasons for the disparity in the views of European countries on the future of the European Union and on relations with Russia. The article provides examples of its intrusion into internal affairs of the most influential European states, imposition of partnership with them, manipulation and blackmailing with the aim of controlling their foreign policy decisions. The article discusses possible scenarios of events in the world in case of Russia's further aggression against Ukraine and recommends reviewing cooperation between the civilized powers and Russia in order to preserve the status quo in the arrangement of political forces in the world. The conclusion of the work summarizes the scale of the conflict between Russia and the West. The necessity of immediate decisive measures for restoration of territorial integrity of Ukraine was substantiated in the article. The investigation suggests the opportunities for further research of the migratory factor in the formation of a comprehensive picture of the Kremlin's hybrid threat to the modern Europe and the world in general in destruction of the existing world order. ; Метою дослідження визначено вияв взаємозв'язку між міграційними кризами, що підвищують вразливість країн ЄС перед іншими важливими викликами й мають значний вплив на їх внутрішню та зовнішню політику, та посиленням ворожої активності Російської Федерації на континенті. Актуальність теми статті зумовлена необхідністю вивчення цивілізаційного виміру конфлікту з використанням мігрантів у якості зброї та політичного маніпулювання сильнішим супротивником, яким для Росії залишається Захід в обличчі США та Євросоюзу. Результатами наукової розвідки стало виявлення причинно-наслідкових зв'язків між агресивною риторикою, діями та очікуваннями Російської Федерації стосовно європейських країн та США в сучасних умовах посилення світових міграційних тенденцій. У роботі встановлено причетність Кремля до міграційної кризи в Європі у 2015-2016 рр. та проаналізовано його роль у формуванні потоків сирійських біженців. Оцінено також участь Росії в інспірації міграційного конфлікту на білорусько-польському кордоні та охарактеризовано «некрополітику» режиму Лукашенки як спробу догодити Москві через застосування тиску на іноземних громадян та феномену «озброєної міграції». У статті з'ясовано причини розрізненості європейських країн у поглядах щодо майбутнього ЄС та щодо відносин з Росією, наведено приклади її втручання у внутрішні справи найвпливовіших держав Європи, імітації партнерства з ними, маніпуляцій та шантажу з метою контролю над їх зовнішньополітичними рішеннями. Окреслено можливі сценарії розвитку подій у світі у випадку подальшої агресії РФ щодо України та запропоновано переглянути взаємодію цивілізованих держав з Росією задля збереження статус-кво у розстановці політичних сил у світі. У висновках до роботи узагальнено масштаби конфлікту Росії та Заходу, обґрунтовано необхідність негайних рішучих кроків щодо відновлення територіальної цілісності України та запропоновано аспекти подальших досліджень міграційного чинника для формування комплексної картини гібридної загрози Кремля сучасній Європі та світу в прагненні зруйнувати існуючий світовий порядок. ; Метою дослідження визначено вияв взаємозв'язку між міграційними кризами, що підвищують вразливість країн ЄС перед іншими важливими викликами й мають значний вплив на їх внутрішню та зовнішню політику, та посиленням ворожої активності Російської Федерації на континенті. Актуальність теми статті зумовлена необхідністю вивчення цивілізаційного виміру конфлікту з використанням мігрантів у якості зброї та політичного маніпулювання сильнішим супротивником, яким для Росії залишається Захід в обличчі США та Євросоюзу. Результатами наукової розвідки стало виявлення причинно-наслідкових зв'язків між агресивною риторикою, діями та очікуваннями Російської Федерації стосовно європейських країн та США в сучасних умовах посилення світових міграційних тенденцій. У роботі встановлено причетність Кремля до міграційної кризи в Європі у 2015-2016 рр. та проаналізовано його роль у формуванні потоків сирійських біженців. Оцінено також участь Росії в інспірації міграційного конфлікту на білорусько-польському кордоні та охарактеризовано «некрополітику» режиму Лукашенки як спробу догодити Москві через застосування тиску на іноземних громадян та феномену «озброєної міграції». У статті з'ясовано причини розрізненості європейських країн у поглядах щодо майбутнього ЄС та щодо відносин з Росією, наведено приклади її втручання у внутрішні справи найвпливовіших держав Європи, імітації партнерства з ними, маніпуляцій та шантажу з метою контролю над їх зовнішньополітичними рішеннями. Окреслено можливі сценарії розвитку подій у світі у випадку подальшої агресії РФ щодо України та запропоновано переглянути взаємодію цивілізованих держав з Росією задля збереження статус-кво у розстановці політичних сил у світі. У висновках до роботи узагальнено масштаби конфлікту Росії та Заходу, обґрунтовано необхідність негайних рішучих кроків щодо відновлення територіальної цілісності України та запропоновано аспекти подальших досліджень міграційного чинника для формування комплексної картини гібридної загрози Кремля сучасній Європі та світу в прагненні зруйнувати існуючий світовий порядок.

Research by D.J.S. is supported by NSF grants AST-1821967, AST-1821987, AST-1813708, AST-1813466, and AST-1908972, as well as by the Heising-Simons Foundation under grant #20201864. The CSP-II has been supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) grants AST-1008343, AST-1613426, AST-1613455, and AST-1613472, as well as by the Danish Agency for Science and Technology and Innovation through a Sapere Aude Level 2 grant. E.Y.H. and J.L. also acknowledge the support of the Florida Space Grant Consortium. This work was partially performed at the Aspen Center for Physics, which is supported by NSF grant PHY-1607611. Research by S.V. is supported by NSF grants AST1813176 and AST-2008108. L.G. was funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 839090. This work has been partially supported by the Spanish grant PGC2018-095317-B-C21 within the European Funds for Regional Development (FEDER). M.S. is supported by generous grants from Villum FONDEN (13261, 28021) and by a project grant (8021-00170B) from the Independent Research Fund Denmark. A.V.F. is grateful for financial assistance from the TABASGO Foundation, the Christopher R. Redlich Fund, and the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science (U.C. Berkeley). Based on observations obtained at the international Gemini Observatory (GN-2015A-Q-8, GS-2015A-Q-5), a program of NSF's NOIRLab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. on behalf of the Gemini Observatory partnership: the National Science Foundation (United States), National Research Council (Canada), Agencia Nacional de Investigacion y Desarrollo (Chile), Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnologia e Innovacion (Argentina), Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia, Inovacoes e Comunicacoes (Brazil), and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (Republic of Korea). This paper includes data gathered with the Nordic Optical Telescope (PI Stritzinger) at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain. This work is based in part on observations from the Deep Imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph at the Keck II telescope. We are grateful to the staff at the Keck Observatory for their assistance, and we extend special thanks to those of Hawaiian ancestry on whose sacred mountain we are privileged to be guests. The W. M. Keck Observatory is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and NASA; it was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. We thank S. Bradley Cenko for assistance with the Keck spectral reductions, as well as Patrick Kelly, WeiKang Zheng, and John Mauerhan for their assistance with the observations. D.J.S. is a visiting Astronomer at the Infrared Telescope Facility, which is operated by the University of Hawaii under contract 80HQTR19D0030 with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programmes 188.D-3003 and 191.D-0935: PESSTO (the Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey for Transient Objects). ; Unburned carbon is potentially a powerful probe of Type Ia supernova (SN) explosion mechanisms. We present comprehensive optical and near-infrared (NIR) data on the "transitional" Type Ia SN 2015bp. An early NIR spectrum (t=−9.9 days with respect to B-band maximum) displays a striking C I λ1.0693μm line at 11.9×103~km s−1, distinct from the prominent Mg II λ1.0927μm feature, which weakens toward maximum light. SN 2015bp also displays a clear C II λ6580A notch early (t=−10.9 days) at 13.2×103~km s−1, consistent with our NIR carbon detection. At MB=−18.46, SN 2015bp is less luminous than a normal SN Ia and, along with iPTF13ebh, is the second member of the transitional subclass to display prominent early-time NIR carbon absorption. We find it unlikely that the C I feature is misidentified He I λ1.0830μm because this feature grows weaker toward maximum light, while the helium line produced in some double-detonation models grows stronger at these times. Intrigued by these strong NIR carbon detections, but lacking NIR data for other SNe Ia, we investigated the incidence of optical carbon in the sample of nine transitional SNe Ia with early-time data (t≲−4 days). We find that four display C II λ6580A, while two others show tentative detections, in line with the SN Ia population as a whole. We conclude that at least ∼50% of transitional SNe Ia in our sample do not come from sub-Chandrasekhar mass explosions due to the clear presence of carbon in their NIR and optical spectra. ; National Science Foundation (NSF) AST-1821967 AST-1821987 AST-1813708 AST-1813466 AST-1908972 PHY-1607611 AST1813176 AST-2008108 ; Heising-Simons Foundation 20201864 ; National Science Foundation (NSF) AST-1008343 AST-1613426 AST-1613455 AST-1613472 ; Danish Agency for Science and Technology and Innovation ; Florida Space Grant Consortium ; European Commission 839090 ; Spanish grant within the European Funds for Regional Development (FEDER) PGC2018-095317-B-C21 ; Villum Foundation 13261 28021 ; Independent Research Fund Denmark 8021-00170B ; TABASGO Foundation ; Christopher R. Redlich Fund ; Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science (U.C. Berkeley) ; International Gemini Observatory GN-2015A-Q-8 GS-2015A-Q-5 ; W.M. Keck Foundation ; University of Hawaii 80HQTR19D0030 ; National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) ; ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory 188.D-3003 191.D-0935: PESSTO

The author argues that polity and policies of Getúlio Vargas's Estado Novo cannot be fully understood without exploring the legacy of Rio Grande do Sul. The southern state's first republican governor, Júlio de Castilhos, had taken inspiration in Auguste Comte's multifaceted political philosophy and inculcated its authoritarian traits into political institutions. Yet, he and his followers substantially adapted Comte's positivism to the specific economic and political circumstances in their republiqueta sui generis. In contrast to Comte, the State merged temporal and spiritual powers to pursue evolutionary political changes, a balanced socioeconomic modernisation, and the incorporation of the populus qua paternalistic public policies, and all this with a strong focus on education. Changing contexts resulted in further adjustments, when Vargas became governor in 1928: an 'orderly' inclusion of the opposition into the polity, a stronger state interventionism in the economy and labor market, and an experimentation with state corporatism. These experiences paved the way for this comtismo-turned-castilhismo-turning-varguismo to enter the national stage two years later. Despite all the compromises with other contenders for power that Vargas had to make thereafter, he and his gaúcho and other co-opted protégés remained united in the strong belief in technical solutions to social problems and a quest for rational institutions to carry out transformative policies. For them, the State was to be agent of development, tutor of corporate interest groups, and now also guarantor of national security. While highlighting the significant, and still underestimated, impact of French positivism on Vargas's first 15 years in government, the article places emphasis on the pragmatic dimensions of its appropriation, propagation, and reinterpretation by two generations of state-builders. ; El autor sostiene que el sistema político y las políticas del Estado Nuevo de Getúlio Vargas no pueden comprenderse plenamente sin explorar el legado de Rio Grande del Sur. El primer gobernador republicano del estado sureño, Júlio de Castilhos, se inspiró en la polifacética filosofía política de Auguste Comte e inculcó sus rasgos autoritarios en las instituciones políticas. Sin embargo, él y sus seguidores adaptaron sustancialmente el positivismo de Comte a las circunstancias económicas y políticas específicas de su republiqueta sui generis. A diferencia de Comte, el Estado fusionó los poderes temporales y espirituales para llevar a cabo cambios políticos evolutivos, una modernización socioeconómica equilibrada y la incorporación del pueblo a través de políticas públicas paternalistas, y todo, con un fuerte enfoque en la educación. Los cambios contextuales dieron lugar a nuevos ajustes cuando Vargas se convirtió en gobernador en 1928: una inclusión "ordenada" de la oposición en el sistema político, un mayor intervencionismo estatal en la economía y el mercado de trabajo, y una experimentación con el corporativismo estatal. Estas experiencias allanaron el camino para que este comtismo convertido en castilhismo y convertiendose en varguismo entrara en la escena nacional dos años después. A pesar de todas las concesiones que, a partir de entonces, Vargas tuvo que hacer a otros contendientes por el poder, él, sus Sul-Riograndenses y otros protegidos cooptados permanecieron unidos por la fuerte creencia en soluciones técnicas a los problemas sociales y por la búsqueda de instituciones racionales para llevar a cabo políticas transformadoras. Para ellos, el Estado debía ser agente de desarrollo, tutor de los grupos de interés corporativos y, ahora, también garante de la seguridad nacional. Al mismo tiempo que se destaca el significativo, y aún subestimado, impacto del positivismo francés en los primeros 15 años de gobierno de Vargas, el artículo pone énfasis en las dimensiones pragmáticas de su apropiación, propagación y reinterpretación por parte de dos generaciones de constructores de Estado. ; O autor argumenta que o sistema político e as políticas do Estado Novo de Getúlio Vargas não podem ser completamente compreendidos sem explorar o legado do Rio Grande do Sul. O primeiro governador republicano do estado sulino, Júlio de Castilhos, inspirou-se na filosofia política multifacetada de Auguste Comte e inculcou os seus traços autoritários nas instituições políticas. No entanto, ele e os seus seguidores adaptaram substancialmente o positivismo de Comte às circunstâncias econômicas e políticas específicas na sua republiqueta sui generis. Em contraste com Comte, o Estado fundiu poderes temporais e espirituais para prosseguir mudanças políticas evolutivas, uma modernização socioeconômica equilibrada, e a incorporação do povo através de políticas públicas paternalistas, e tudo isso com um forte enfoque na educação. A mudança de contextos resultou em mais ajustes, quando Vargas se tornou governador em 1928: uma inclusão "ordenada" da oposição na política, um intervencionismo estatal mais forte na economia e no mercado de trabalho, e uma experimentação com o corporativismo estatal. Tais experiências abriram o caminho para que este comtismo transformado em castilhismo e transformando-se em varguismo entrasse na cena nacional dois anos depois. Apesar das concessões que, em seguida, Vargas teve de fazer a outros concorrentes ao poder, ele, os seus gaúchos, e outros protegidos cooptados permaneceram unidos na forte crença em soluções técnicas para problemas sociais e na procura de instituições racionais para levar a cabo políticas transformadoras. O Estado deveria ser agente de desenvolvimento, tutor de grupos de interesse corporativos, e, além disso, dirigente da segurança nacional. Ao mesmo tempo em que salienta o impacto significativo, e ainda subestimado, do positivismo francês nos primeiros 15 anos de governo de Vargas, o artigo enfatiza as dimensões pragmáticas da sua apropriação, propagação e reinterpretação por duas gerações de construtores do Estado.

An inclusive search is presented for long-lived particles using displaced jets. The search uses a data sample collected with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC in 2017 and 2018, from proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The results of this search are combined with those of a previous search using a data sample collected with the CMS detector in 2016, yielding a total integrated luminosity of 132 ? ? fb ? 1 . The analysis searches for the distinctive topology of displaced tracks and displaced vertices associated with a dijet system. For a simplified model, where pair-produced long-lived neutral particles decay into quark-antiquark pairs, pair production cross sections larger than 0.07 fb are excluded at 95% confidence level (C.L.) for long-lived particle masses larger than 500 GeV and mean proper decay lengths between 2 and 250 mm. For a model where the standard model-like Higgs boson decays to two long-lived scalar particles that each decays to a quark-antiquark pair, branching fractions larger than 1% are excluded at 95% C.L. for mean proper decay lengths between 1 mm and 340 mm. A group of supersymmetric models with pair-produced long-lived gluinos or top squarks decaying into various final-state topologies containing displaced jets is also tested. Gluino masses up to 2500 GeV and top squark masses up to 1600 GeV are excluded at 95% C.L. for mean proper decay lengths between 3 and 300 mm. The highest lower bounds on mass reach 2600 GeV for long-lived gluinos and 1800 GeV for long-lived top squarks. These are the most stringent limits to date on these models. ; We congratulate our colleagues in the CERN accelerator departments for the excellent performance of the LHC and thank the technical and administrative staffs at CERN and at other CMS institutes for their contributions to the success of the CMS effort. In addition, we gratefully acknowledge the computing centers and personnel of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid for delivering so effectively the computing infrastructure essential to our analyses. Finally, we acknowledge the enduring support for the construction and operation of the LHC and the CMS detector provided by the following funding agencies: BMBWF and FWF (Austria); FNRS and FWO (Belgium); CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, FAPERGS, and FAPESP (Brazil); MES (Bulgaria); CERN; CAS, MoST, and NSFC (China); COLCIENCIAS (Colombia); MSES and CSF (Croatia); RIF (Cyprus); SENESCYT (Ecuador); MoER, ERC PUT and ERDF (Estonia); Academy of Finland, MEC, and HIP (Finland); CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France); BMBF, DFG, and HGF (Germany); GSRT (Greece); NKFIA (Hungary); DAE and DST (India); IPM (Iran); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); MSIP and NRF (Republic of Korea); MES (Latvia); LAS (Lithuania); MOE and UM (Malaysia); BUAP, CINVESTAV, CONACYT, LNS, SEP, and UASLP-FAI (Mexico); MOS (Montenegro); MBIE (New Zealand); PAEC (Pakistan); MSHE and NSC (Poland); FCT (Portugal); JINR (Dubna); MON, RosAtom, RAS, RFBR, and NRC KI (Russia); MESTD (Serbia); SEIDI, CPAN, PCTI, and FEDER (Spain); MOSTR (Sri Lanka); Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland); MST (Taipei); ThEPCenter, IPST, STAR, and NSTDA (Thailand); TUBITAK and TAEK (Turkey); NASU (Ukraine); STFC (United Kingdom); DOE and NSF (USA). Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie program and the European Research Council and Horizon 2020 Grant, contracts No. 675440, No. 724704, No. 752730, and No. 765710 (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the A. P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation `a la Recherche dans l'Industrie et dans l'Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWTBelgium); the F. R. S.-FNRS and FWO (Belgium) under the "Excellence of Science—EOS"—be.h project n. 30820817; the Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission, No. Z191100007219010; the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of the Czech Republic; the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) under Germany's Excellence Strategy—EXC 2121 "Quantum Universe"—390833306; the Lendület ("Momentum") Program and the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the New National Excellence Program ÚNKP, the NKFIA research grants No. 123842, No. 123959, No. 124845, No. 124850, No. 125105, No. 128713, No. 128786, and No. 129058 (Hungary); the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the HOMING PLUS program of the Foundation for Polish Science, cofinanced from European Union, Regional Development Fund, the Mobility Plus program of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the National Science Center (Poland), contracts Harmonia 2014/14/M/ST2/00428, Opus 2014/13/B/ST2/02543, 2014/ 15/B/ST2/03998, and 2015/19/B/ST2/02861, Sonata-bis 2012/07/E/ST2/01406; the National Priorities Research Program by Qatar National Research Fund; the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, project no. 0723-2020- 0041 (Russia); the Tomsk Polytechnic University Competitiveness Enhancement Program; the Programa Estatal de Fomento de la Investigación Científica y T´ecnica de Excelencia María de Maeztu, Grant No. MDM-2015-0509 and the Programa Severo Ochoa del Principado de Asturias; the Thalis and Aristeia programs cofinanced by EU-ESF and the Greek NSRF; the Rachadapisek Sompot Fund for Postdoctoral Fellowship, ChulalongkornUniversity and the ChulalongkornAcademic into Its 2nd Century Project Advancement Project (Thailand); the Kavli Foundation; the Nvidia Corporation; the SuperMicro Corporation; the Welch Foundation, ContractC-1845; and theWestonHavensFoundation(USA).

Motor systems are an integral part of our industrial and commercial facilities. They provide the motive force behind the fans, pumps, compressors, chillers, and conveyors in these facilities. Given their centrality to any facility's operations, they are a critical energy end use to understand, particularly when developing technologies and policies to meet sustainability goals, improve productivity, and enhance resilience. In the late 1990s, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) conducted two seminal studies to better understand the installed stock and energy savings opportunities of industrial and commercial motor systems. In the industrial sector, The United States Industrial Electric Motor Systems Market Opportunities Assessment used primary data collected through onsite assessments and led to a greater understanding of the installed base of motor systems, their characteristics, and the opportunities for energy savings (U.S. Department of Energy, 2002). Notable findings included the following: • Industrial motor systems consumed 679 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 1994, representing 23 percent of U.S. electricity consumption. • Cost-effective energy efficiency measures could result in 62-104 billion kWh of energy savings annually. • Sixty-two percent of the energy savings potential was from fan, pump, and compressor end use equipment. • Nearly half of motor system electricity consumption was attributable to approximately 3,500 facilities, or 1.5 percent of U.S. manufacturing facilities. Opportunities for Energy Savings in the Residential and Commercial Sectors with High Efficiency Electric Motors provided an evaluation of the installed stock of motor driven equipment in U.S. commercial and residential buildings and opportunities for utilization of high efficiency motors and variable speed technologies (Arthur D. Little, 1999). Notable findings included the following: • Commercial motor systems consumed 343 billion kWh in 1995, with refrigeration and space conditioning constituting 93 percent of the total. • Cost-effective energy efficiency measures could result in 51 billion kWh of energy savings annually. Due in no small part to these seminal studies, motor system technologies and usage characteristics have changed drastically since the late 1990s. Greater awareness of cost-effective strategies for reducing motor system electricity consumption have been developed and deployed. This includes several software tools, literature, and utility and government programs promoting energy efficiency improvements in motor driven systems. Additionally, several rounds of energy efficiency standards have been enacted, resulting in improved installed motor efficiency. The cost of variable speed drives has dropped substantially, and combined with utility rebate programs, has led to their greater adoption. Further, since these results were published, the U.S. manufacturing sector has undergone a massive transformation. Due to global competition, some sectors have relocated operations overseas. Others have brought operations onshore to avail low cost and abundant natural gas. Additionally, automation and robotics have pervaded the entire sector. Consequently, these two reports likely do not represent the current state of motor driven systems in U.S. industrial and commercial facilities. As cited in recent studies, the lack of current information on motor system electricity consumption and use characteristics limits the ability to conduct analysis on energy savings potential, develop technologies to address energy and productivity gaps, and develop programs to promote energy efficiency practices and technologies for motor systems (International Energy Agency, 2007; UNIDO, 2010; McKane and Hasanbeigi, 2011; Waide and Brunner, 2011). Specifically, the lack of information affects a range of stakeholders: • Governments must rely on outdated information when setting research agendas, developing policies, and designing energy efficiency programs and offerings. • Utilities and energy efficiency programs cannot identify the current market needs or potential impact when designing rebate and energy efficiency programs. • Electric grid planners cannot identify motor system usage characteristics when developing plans to support the resilience of the electric grid. • Manufacturers of motors, motor driven equipment, and drives are hampered when developing technologies to meet the needs of their market. • Motor system end users are limited in their ability to identify energy saving opportunities within their own facilities because they do not have reliable benchmark information. In response to the lack of current information and analysis on industrial and commercial motor systems, the DOE initiated an update to these two studies. Launched in 2016 and led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), the Motor System Market Assessment (MSMA) provides an updated, more comprehensive assessment of the installed stock of motor systems in both the industrial and commercial sectors, a review of the supply chains supporting motor and drives in the U.S., and the performance improvement opportunity available from using best available technologies and maintenance and operation practices. The outcomes of the MSMA are documented in three U.S. Industrial and Commercial Motor System Market Assessment reports, with this report being the first listed: 1. Volume 1: Characteristics of the Installed Base (this report) documents the findings on the installed base of motor systems in the U.S. industrial and commercial sectors. Quantification of energy savings potential is not documented in this report but in Volume 3. 2. Volume 2: Motors and Drives Supply Chain Review reviews the state of supply chains for motors and drives installed in U.S. industrial and commercial facilities, focusing on advanced motor and drive technologies and their constituent materials. 3. Volume 3: Energy Savings Opportunity analyzes the energy performance improvement opportunity for the installed base of U.S. industrial and commercial motor systems. This report has been prepared as a reference for motor system stakeholders. It provides factual information as could be best determined by the assessment results and avoids speculating on any findings.

The global outbreak of the COVID-19 virus has caused a major crisis affecting the population, economies and health systems. Travelling restrictions, suspended business activities, lack of healthcare measures and loss of revenue are linked to the effects of the COVID-19 crisis. The pandemic impacted increase of unemployment, decrease of exports and imports as well as negative changes in consumer pricing and number of bankruptcies. COVID-19 has affected not only economic activities but also had a strong impact on human health with a high number of deaths. Global COVID-19 crisis management included tax and public protection measures, the application of fiscal policy also played an important role. Fiscal measures adopted to manage the consequences of the pandemic included wage support, business assistance, tax deferrals, social benefits for the most vulnerable groups of population. Fiscal policy measures applied by the states, depended on the epidemiological situation in the country, country capacities and identified priority areas. The scientific research articles summarizes national actions and measures which were applied to reduce the consequences of COVID-19, as well as analyzes the relevance of fiscal policy. After completing the analysis of the scientific sources, the aim of this final project was identified to be the – investigation of the impact of fiscal measures in order to reduce the effects of COVID-19. The object of the research – fiscal policy measures in the context of COVID-19. COVID-19 virus spread worldwide at the end of the 1st quarter of 2020. Currently recorded over a million deaths caused by the virus. Analysis of statistical data showed significant increase in unemployment in the second quarter of 2020. Also, the volume of imports and exports decreased significantly. The increase in bankruptcies was also noticeable but at the same time new companies were emerging. The world's authorities have actively responded to the spread of the virus and taken urgent actions. The IMF provided financial assistance to the countries affected by the pandemic, the EU took steps to ensure population health protection, measures to stop the spread of the virus, disinformation and supported development of vaccines (Goniewicz et al. 2020). Fiscal policy is implemented through the government expenditure and use of revenue to influence the economy (IMF, 2020). The importance of fiscal policy has become apparent during the recent financial crisis, when countries have taken steps to increase spending and cut taxes to suspend the effects of the crisis. In the case of the COVID-19 crisis, the focus is on health care, income maintenance and the provision of social benefits and business support. Researches shown that fiscal policy based on increase in government spending is most appropriate for analyzing GDP, debt-to-GDP ratios, deficit-to-GDP ratios. Also, analyzing the changes in Lithuanian real estate prices, it is assumed that the fiscal measures adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on the smaller decline of housing prices. In the United States, fiscal measures focused on unemployment insurance, unconditional benefits and liquidity-providing measures are expected to have had the greatest impact on COVID-19 crisis management. After analysis of scientific resources was decided to analyze the effectiveness of fiscal policy measures applied during the COVID-19 crisis. After assessing the limitations of the study, the analysis is performed taking Lithuania for a case study, analyzing household consumption and long-term loan interests and their reaction to the COVID-19 economic stimulus measures. The study showed that household consumption was significantly affected by the "Plan of Measures for Economic Stimulation and Mitigation of the Spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19)", identified in 2nd aim content. Without appropriate economic stimulus measures, household consumption would be lower by about 14% in the 2nd quarter of 2020, lower by about 3% in the 3rd quarter of 2020 and lower by 4.4% in the last quarter of 2020. Analyzing the changes in long-term loan interest rates, it is assumed that this indicator changes can be explained by social benefits and liquidity ratios, therefore, without the application of these economic stimulus measures, long-term loan interest rates would be 177% lower (-0.2%) in the 2nd quarter of 2020. In the 3rd quarter of 2020, long-term loan interest rates would reach -0.39%, and in the last quarter would reach -0.02%. Thus, household consumption and long-term loan interest rates are significantly affected by the 2nd and 3rd aims of the COVID-19 consequence reduction plan prepared by Lithuania, which seeks to preserve income of the population and help businesses to maintain liquidity. In terms of global analysis, there was decided to analyze COVID-19 fiscal plans in other countries. The analysis of the fiscal plans revealed that Germany accounted for the largest share of fiscal measures (30% GDP), Sweden (16% of GDP), Austria (about 13% of GDP), France (10% of GDP). Analyzing the structure of fiscal plans, it is assumed that the largest amount of funds is allocated for business assistance, and the smaller part – for population. In the case of Lithuania, the study showed that measures to preserve the income of the population have the greatest impact on changes in household consumption. Greece (around 2% of GDP) and France (around 1.4% of GDP) accounted for the largest share of funds allocated to the population. Long-term loan interest rates are significantly affected by measures supporting business and the population. In Germany, France, Finland, Lithuania, Sweden, Austria and Greece most funds were allocated to businesses. The research has shown that the economic stimulus measures put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic did not stop the negative developments in household consumption and long-term loan interest rates. However, the applied measures mitigated the impact to the analyzed indicators throughout the COVID-19 period.

The global outbreak of the COVID-19 virus has caused a major crisis affecting the population, economies and health systems. Travelling restrictions, suspended business activities, lack of healthcare measures and loss of revenue are linked to the effects of the COVID-19 crisis. The pandemic impacted increase of unemployment, decrease of exports and imports as well as negative changes in consumer pricing and number of bankruptcies. COVID-19 has affected not only economic activities but also had a strong impact on human health with a high number of deaths. Global COVID-19 crisis management included tax and public protection measures, the application of fiscal policy also played an important role. Fiscal measures adopted to manage the consequences of the pandemic included wage support, business assistance, tax deferrals, social benefits for the most vulnerable groups of population. Fiscal policy measures applied by the states, depended on the epidemiological situation in the country, country capacities and identified priority areas. The scientific research articles summarizes national actions and measures which were applied to reduce the consequences of COVID-19, as well as analyzes the relevance of fiscal policy. After completing the analysis of the scientific sources, the aim of this final project was identified to be the – investigation of the impact of fiscal measures in order to reduce the effects of COVID-19. The object of the research – fiscal policy measures in the context of COVID-19. COVID-19 virus spread worldwide at the end of the 1st quarter of 2020. Currently recorded over a million deaths caused by the virus. Analysis of statistical data showed significant increase in unemployment in the second quarter of 2020. Also, the volume of imports and exports decreased significantly. The increase in bankruptcies was also noticeable but at the same time new companies were emerging. The world's authorities have actively responded to the spread of the virus and taken urgent actions. The IMF provided financial assistance to the countries affected by the pandemic, the EU took steps to ensure population health protection, measures to stop the spread of the virus, disinformation and supported development of vaccines (Goniewicz et al. 2020). Fiscal policy is implemented through the government expenditure and use of revenue to influence the economy (IMF, 2020). The importance of fiscal policy has become apparent during the recent financial crisis, when countries have taken steps to increase spending and cut taxes to suspend the effects of the crisis. In the case of the COVID-19 crisis, the focus is on health care, income maintenance and the provision of social benefits and business support. Researches shown that fiscal policy based on increase in government spending is most appropriate for analyzing GDP, debt-to-GDP ratios, deficit-to-GDP ratios. Also, analyzing the changes in Lithuanian real estate prices, it is assumed that the fiscal measures adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on the smaller decline of housing prices. In the United States, fiscal measures focused on unemployment insurance, unconditional benefits and liquidity-providing measures are expected to have had the greatest impact on COVID-19 crisis management. After analysis of scientific resources was decided to analyze the effectiveness of fiscal policy measures applied during the COVID-19 crisis. After assessing the limitations of the study, the analysis is performed taking Lithuania for a case study, analyzing household consumption and long-term loan interests and their reaction to the COVID-19 economic stimulus measures. The study showed that household consumption was significantly affected by the "Plan of Measures for Economic Stimulation and Mitigation of the Spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19)", identified in 2nd aim content. Without appropriate economic stimulus measures, household consumption would be lower by about 14% in the 2nd quarter of 2020, lower by about 3% in the 3rd quarter of 2020 and lower by 4.4% in the last quarter of 2020. Analyzing the changes in long-term loan interest rates, it is assumed that this indicator changes can be explained by social benefits and liquidity ratios, therefore, without the application of these economic stimulus measures, long-term loan interest rates would be 177% lower (-0.2%) in the 2nd quarter of 2020. In the 3rd quarter of 2020, long-term loan interest rates would reach -0.39%, and in the last quarter would reach -0.02%. Thus, household consumption and long-term loan interest rates are significantly affected by the 2nd and 3rd aims of the COVID-19 consequence reduction plan prepared by Lithuania, which seeks to preserve income of the population and help businesses to maintain liquidity. In terms of global analysis, there was decided to analyze COVID-19 fiscal plans in other countries. The analysis of the fiscal plans revealed that Germany accounted for the largest share of fiscal measures (30% GDP), Sweden (16% of GDP), Austria (about 13% of GDP), France (10% of GDP). Analyzing the structure of fiscal plans, it is assumed that the largest amount of funds is allocated for business assistance, and the smaller part – for population. In the case of Lithuania, the study showed that measures to preserve the income of the population have the greatest impact on changes in household consumption. Greece (around 2% of GDP) and France (around 1.4% of GDP) accounted for the largest share of funds allocated to the population. Long-term loan interest rates are significantly affected by measures supporting business and the population. In Germany, France, Finland, Lithuania, Sweden, Austria and Greece most funds were allocated to businesses. The research has shown that the economic stimulus measures put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic did not stop the negative developments in household consumption and long-term loan interest rates. However, the applied measures mitigated the impact to the analyzed indicators throughout the COVID-19 period.

Humankind's carbon intensive lifestyle has been altering Earth's climate rapidly and today's policy decisions determine the amount of warming that is yet to occur. To understand the consequences of choices associated with different future emission pathways, as well as adaptation needs, targeted local-scale climate information accounting for major sources of climate change uncertainty is urgently needed. While Earth System Models (ESMs) are the most established tools to quantify the implications of changing greenhouse gas concentrations on the climate system, their computational cost implies that they can only sparsely explore regional climate change uncertainty. Computationally efficient ESM emulators are promising tools to fill the gap between the climate information that is needed and the climate information that can be provided by ESMs. In this thesis, a framework for regional ESM emulation is presented and its first implementation, a Modular Earth System Model Emulator with spatially Resolved output called MESMER, is developed. In combination with a global mean temperature emulator, MESMER is able to account for all three major sources of climate change projection uncertainty at the local scale: (i) internal variability uncertainty, i.e., unforced natural climate variability; (ii) forced climate response uncertainty, i.e., the Earth system's response to forced natural changes (solar and volcanic) and human influences (greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions, land use changes etc); and (iii) emission uncertainty, i.e., uncertainty in the emission pathway humans choose to follow. In four scientific studies, constituting individual chapters of this thesis, MESMER is introduced, extended, and applied in various contexts. In Chapter 2, the MESMER framework is proposed and used to successfully approximate annual temperature change field time series for the highest emission scenario of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5). MESMER is an ESM-specific emulator and, by being trained on each ESM individually, captures the different ESMs' unique characteristics. Thereby, only a single training simulation covering the historical period and the future scenario is required to calibrate MESMER for each ESM. This feature is of key importance to be able to emulate the full regional climate change uncertainty space spanned by the CMIP5 ensemble, since the majority of the CMIP5 ESMs only carried out a single simulation per emission scenario. By approximating the ESM-specific forced warming response as a direct function of forced global mean warming and by stochastically generating additional natural variability realizations for each CMIP5 ESM, an emulated multi-ESM initial-condition ensemble with thousands of members is created at a negligible computational cost. In Chapter 3, MESMER is employed to derive regionally-optimized projections of the highest emission scenario of the newly available Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) ensemble. When evaluating individual ESMs' performance with respect to a global metric (global temperature trend) and a regional metric (regional response to global warming), it is revealed that there is no direct relationship between global and regional response performance. This motivates to "crossbreed" ESMs by recombining observationally-constrained global and local features of different ESMs. The resulting hybrid emulations thoroughly sample the observationally-consistent climate change projection uncertainty phase space. Differences between the emulated optimized projections and emulations of the original CMIP6 ensemble are spatially diverse but the highest warming projections are generally reduced. In Chapter 4, MESMER is coupled to the emission-driven, global mean emulator MAGICC. This MAGICC-MESMER emulator chain is able to provide ESM-specific as well as constrained probabilistic temperature change field time series for any given emission scenario. Here, MESMER is trained on all CMIP6 simulations from all available scenarios for each ESM to obtain as robust parameter estimates as possible. The resulting parameters are scenario-independent and it is confirmed that global forced warming is the only predictor needed to successfully emulate annual forced warming for a broad range of emission scenarios for most ESMs and in most regions. The emulated MAGICC-MESMER ensemble can complement and extend the original CMIP6 ensemble in three key aspects. (i) The forced climate response and natural variability uncertainty can be sampled more thoroughly with millions of emulations readily available. (ii) The same uncertainty space can be covered for any emission scenario, which is especially important because in the CMIP6 ensemble some of the societally most relevant high mitigation scenarios have been run by considerably fewer ESMs than other scenarios. (iii) Other lines of evidence, such as observational constraints, can be integrated to refine future projections. In Chapter 5, the MAGICC-MESMER emulator chain is used to assign responsibility for past and near-term future country-level warming and extreme hot years to single major emitters, a task which is too computationally expensive to be addressed with full ESM ensembles. Specifically, the contributions of the five largest historical emitters - China, the United States, the European Union, India, and Russia - are quantified in the context of their historical past and pledged future emissions until 2030. This is done both for actual emissions and for hypothetical per capita scenarios in which the whole globe's per capita emissions are set to follow each one of these emitters' per capita emissions. The results highlight the major emitters' relevance for regional-scale climate change and provide new angles for the climate policy discourse. MESMER, when used in combination with a global emulator, is the first tool to rapidly provide targeted local-scale climate information accounting for all major sources of climate change projection uncertainty. MESMER's code has been made publicly available to increase its accessibility and to accelerate its uptake by a broader user community. This opens perspectives for unprecedented near-real-time assessments of regionally resolved climate consequences induced by different policy choices for diverse users.

The global outbreak of the COVID-19 virus has caused a major crisis affecting the population, economies and health systems. Travelling restrictions, suspended business activities, lack of healthcare measures and loss of revenue are linked to the effects of the COVID-19 crisis. The pandemic impacted increase of unemployment, decrease of exports and imports as well as negative changes in consumer pricing and number of bankruptcies. COVID-19 has affected not only economic activities but also had a strong impact on human health with a high number of deaths. Global COVID-19 crisis management included tax and public protection measures, the application of fiscal policy also played an important role. Fiscal measures adopted to manage the consequences of the pandemic included wage support, business assistance, tax deferrals, social benefits for the most vulnerable groups of population. Fiscal policy measures applied by the states, depended on the epidemiological situation in the country, country capacities and identified priority areas. The scientific research articles summarizes national actions and measures which were applied to reduce the consequences of COVID-19, as well as analyzes the relevance of fiscal policy. After completing the analysis of the scientific sources, the aim of this final project was identified to be the – investigation of the impact of fiscal measures in order to reduce the effects of COVID-19. The object of the research – fiscal policy measures in the context of COVID-19. COVID-19 virus spread worldwide at the end of the 1st quarter of 2020. Currently recorded over a million deaths caused by the virus. Analysis of statistical data showed significant increase in unemployment in the second quarter of 2020. Also, the volume of imports and exports decreased significantly. The increase in bankruptcies was also noticeable but at the same time new companies were emerging. The world's authorities have actively responded to the spread of the virus and taken urgent actions. The IMF provided financial assistance to the countries affected by the pandemic, the EU took steps to ensure population health protection, measures to stop the spread of the virus, disinformation and supported development of vaccines (Goniewicz et al. 2020). Fiscal policy is implemented through the government expenditure and use of revenue to influence the economy (IMF, 2020). The importance of fiscal policy has become apparent during the recent financial crisis, when countries have taken steps to increase spending and cut taxes to suspend the effects of the crisis. In the case of the COVID-19 crisis, the focus is on health care, income maintenance and the provision of social benefits and business support. Researches shown that fiscal policy based on increase in government spending is most appropriate for analyzing GDP, debt-to-GDP ratios, deficit-to-GDP ratios. Also, analyzing the changes in Lithuanian real estate prices, it is assumed that the fiscal measures adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on the smaller decline of housing prices. In the United States, fiscal measures focused on unemployment insurance, unconditional benefits and liquidity-providing measures are expected to have had the greatest impact on COVID-19 crisis management. After analysis of scientific resources was decided to analyze the effectiveness of fiscal policy measures applied during the COVID-19 crisis. After assessing the limitations of the study, the analysis is performed taking Lithuania for a case study, analyzing household consumption and long-term loan interests and their reaction to the COVID-19 economic stimulus measures. The study showed that household consumption was significantly affected by the "Plan of Measures for Economic Stimulation and Mitigation of the Spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19)", identified in 2nd aim content. Without appropriate economic stimulus measures, household consumption would be lower by about 14% in the 2nd quarter of 2020, lower by about 3% in the 3rd quarter of 2020 and lower by 4.4% in the last quarter of 2020. Analyzing the changes in long-term loan interest rates, it is assumed that this indicator changes can be explained by social benefits and liquidity ratios, therefore, without the application of these economic stimulus measures, long-term loan interest rates would be 177% lower (-0.2%) in the 2nd quarter of 2020. In the 3rd quarter of 2020, long-term loan interest rates would reach -0.39%, and in the last quarter would reach -0.02%. Thus, household consumption and long-term loan interest rates are significantly affected by the 2nd and 3rd aims of the COVID-19 consequence reduction plan prepared by Lithuania, which seeks to preserve income of the population and help businesses to maintain liquidity. In terms of global analysis, there was decided to analyze COVID-19 fiscal plans in other countries. The analysis of the fiscal plans revealed that Germany accounted for the largest share of fiscal measures (30% GDP), Sweden (16% of GDP), Austria (about 13% of GDP), France (10% of GDP). Analyzing the structure of fiscal plans, it is assumed that the largest amount of funds is allocated for business assistance, and the smaller part – for population. In the case of Lithuania, the study showed that measures to preserve the income of the population have the greatest impact on changes in household consumption. Greece (around 2% of GDP) and France (around 1.4% of GDP) accounted for the largest share of funds allocated to the population. Long-term loan interest rates are significantly affected by measures supporting business and the population. In Germany, France, Finland, Lithuania, Sweden, Austria and Greece most funds were allocated to businesses. The research has shown that the economic stimulus measures put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic did not stop the negative developments in household consumption and long-term loan interest rates. However, the applied measures mitigated the impact to the analyzed indicators throughout the COVID-19 period.