Switzerland and the United Nations
Despite the approaching universality of the United Nations, Switzerland continues to be a non-member. Her traditional policy of permanent neutrality, which is theoretically incompatible with the United Nations collective security system, and an unsatisfactory experience as a member of the League of Nations largely explain this absence. Ironically enough, however, Switzerland has played in effect as active a role in the United Nations as have many actual members. Switzerland belongs to most of the specialized agencies and many of the Organization's ancillary organs. She has even involved herself in numerous peacekeeping activities. Geneva serves as the Organization's European headquarters. Thus, the Swiss freely participate in what they refer to as the “technical,” as distinguished from the “political” United Nations. The increased prestige of neutrality and neutral Austria's successful membership, approaching universality, the waning of collective security, and a desire to participate fully in international relations are encouraging a gradual reorientation towards the United Nations which may some day lead to formal Swiss membership.
Why Foreign Policy Principles Persist: Understanding the Reinterpretations of Japan's Article 9 and Switzerland's Neutrality
Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude for my thesis advisors, Professor Tom Le and Professor Hans Rindisbacher, for all of their generous advice and support over the last year. In particular, I would like to thank Professor Le for pushing me from the very beginning to formulate a coherent research method and framework, and Professor Rindisbacher for helping me find and understand indispensable resources in German (one of the three official Swiss languages that I do not understand and unfortunately did not realize that most documents would be in until it was too late). I could not have completed or even truly begun this thesis without their assistance and it has been an exponential learning experience. I would also like to thank Professor Pierre Englebert, Coordinator of International Relations, for creating such a supportive network within the department. The emotional and intellectual support among my peers has been a great source of motivation for my thesis throughout this year. I would like to extend a very special thank you to Laura Pico, my unofficial thesis buddy, first and foremost for struggling through this entire journey with me, but also in particular for helping me with my rudimentary French skills – I am also indebted to Hélène Ries, Angela Pico, and Aaron Varner for the assistance they have given me in this regard. Finally, I place on record my gratitude to all others who, directly or indirectly, have helped me through the process of completing this thesis.
Diversity of Electrospinning Approach for Vascular Implants: Multilayered Tubular Scaffolds
Abstract The biomimetics of biological structures found in nature remains one of the most promising approaches to engineer functional tissues from natural or synthetic biocompatible materials for the replacement of damaged or injured parts of the human body. Recently, medical therapeutic regimes have advanced into a new era, overcoming the known mechanical and biological variances that occur when using autologous or synthetic grafts. Basically, the core concept of tissue biofabrication, commonly referred to as tissue engineering, is to find out the favorable cellular microenvironments to grow a living tissue prior to clinical uses. In fact, the ability of stem cells to regenerate is controlled via signaling pathways (growth factors) and supporting materials (scaffolds) that guide the cellular activities. After the first successful experiments to fabricate polymer fibers from their solutions, Cooley proposed the use of an electric field a century ago (Cooley (US 692:631, 1902 ). The electrospinning technique has been continually developed as a fruitful polymer processing technique to draw ultrafine nonwoven fibers. Electrospun polymer fibers have been used for a wide range of technical and biotechnical applications such as filtration, organic solar cells, tissue engineering, and drug releasing implants. In this regard, this review begins with an overview about the various spinning approaches for the fabrication of polymer fibers as well as the basic principles of electrospinning process. In addition, this review will highlight vascular bypass surgery and, in particular, the needs for vascular tissue engineering. Finally, the review includes some of the latest attempts to improve the mechanical and biological properties of electrospun polymeric fibers and summarizes the challenges and prospects for the future. Lay Summary However, vascular defects are treated successfully via bypass surgical bypass grafting using autologous or synthetic vessels. The small-diameter vessels (less than 6) are often associated with high failure rate. This review reports some of the recent features that should be highlighted to fabricate an ideal graft for small-diameter vascular grafts. The review introduces multilayered conduits as an alternative approach to overcome the known mechanical and biological mismatches of single layered vascular grafts of electrospun polymers.