Civilian casualties and nuclear weapons: the application of the rule of distinction

This chapter considers the possible use in armed conflict of low-yield (also known as tactical) nuclear weapons. The Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion maintained that it is a cardinal principle that a State must never make civilians an object of attack and must consequently never use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets. As international humanitarian law applies equally to any use of nuclear weapons, it is argued that there is no use of nuclear weapons that could spare civilian casualties particularly if you view the long-term health and environmental effects of the use of such weaponry.

Franz Neumann, the rule of law and the unfulfilled promise of classical liberal thought

This thesis draws on the work of Franz Neumann, a critical theorist associated with the early Frankfurt School, to evaluate liberal arguments about political legitimacy and to develop an original account of the justification for the liberal state.

The foundations of the rule of law

Formal conceptions of the rule of law are popular among contemporary legal philosophers. Nonetheless, the coherence of accounts of the rule of law committed to these conceptions is sometimes fractured by elements harkening back to substantive conceptions of the rule of law. I suggest that this may be because at its origins the ideal of the rule of law was substantive through and through. I also argue that those origins are older than is generally supposed. Most authors tend to trace the ideas of the rule of law and natural law back to classical Greece, but I show that they are already recognisable and intertwined as far back as Homer. Because the founding moment of the tradition of western intellectual reflection on the rule of law placed concerns about substantive justice at the centre of the rule of law ideal, it may be hard for this ideal to entirely shrug off its substantive content. It may be undesirable, too, given the rhetorical power of appeals to the rule of law. The rule of law means something quite radical in Homer; this meaning may provide a source of normative inspiration for contemporary reflections about the rule of law.

An investigation into the mechanics of cutting using data from orthogonally cutting Nylon 66

Cutting force data for Nylon 66 has been examined in terms of various different models of cutting. Theory that includes significant work of separation at the tool tip was found to give the best correlation with experimental data over a wide range of rake angles for derived primary shear plane angle. A fracture toughness parameter was used as the measure of the specific work of separation. Variation in toughness with rake angle determined from cutting is postulated to be caused by mixed mode separation at the tool tip. A rule of mixtures using independently determined values of toughness in tension (mode 1) and shear (mode 11) is found to describe well the variation with rake angle. The ratio of modes varies with rake angle and, in turn, with the primary shear plane angle. Previous suggestions that cutting is a means of experimentally determining fracture toughness are now seen to be extended to identify the mode of fracture toughness as well.

Characterisation of blends based on hydroxyethylcellulose and maleic acid-alt-methyl vinyl ether

Hydrophilic polymeric films based on blends of hydroxyethylcellulose and maleic acid-co-methyl vinyl ether were produced by casting from aqueous solutions. The physicochemical properties of the blends have been assessed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermal gravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, dielectric spectroscopy, etc. The pristine films exhibit complete miscibility due to the formation of intermacromolecular hydrogen bonding. The thermal treatment of the blend films leads to cross-linking via intermacromolecular esterification and anhydride formation. The cross-linked materials are able to swell in water and their swelling degree can be easily controlled by temperature and thermal treatment time. The formation of the crosslinks is apparent in the dynamic properties of the blends as observed through the mechanical relaxation and dielectric relaxation spectra. The dielectric characteristics of the material are influenced by the effects of change in the local structure of the blend on the ionic conduction processes and the rate of dipolar relaxation. Separation of these processes is attempted using the dielectric modulus method. Significant deviations from a simple additive rule of mixing on the activation energy are observed consistent with hydrogen bonding and crosslinking of the matrix. This paper indicates a method for the creation of films with good mechanical and physical characteristics by exposing the blends to a relatively mild thermal treatment.

Regina Maris and the command of the sea: the sixteenth century origins of modern maritime strategy

The concept of the command of the sea has its roots in medieval notions of the sovereignty of coastal waters, as claimed by several monarchs and polities of Europe. In the sixteenth century, a surge of intellectual creativity, especially in Elizabethan England, fused this notion with the Thucydidean term ‘thalassocracy’ – the rule of the sea. In the light of the explorations of the oceans, this led to a new conceptualisation of naval warfare, developed in theory and then put into practice. This falsifies the mistaken but widespread assumption that there was no significant writing on naval strategy before the nineteenth century.

Mixed Logit Model Performance and Distributional Assumptions: Preferences and GM foods

Using mixed logit models to analyse choice data is common but requires ex ante specification of the functional forms of preference distributions. We make the case for greater use of bounded functional forms and propose the use of the Marginal Likelihood, calculated using Bayesian techniques, as a single measure of model performance across non nested mixed logit specifications. Using this measure leads to very different rankings of model specifications compared to alternative rule of thumb measures. The approach is illustrated using data from a choice experiment regarding GM food types which provides insights regarding the recent WTO dispute between the EU and the US, Canada and Argentina and whether labelling and trade regimes should be based on the production process or product composition.

Young people with intellectual disabilities attending mainstream and segregated schooling: perceived stigma, social comparison and future aspirations

Mainstream schooling is a key policy in the promotion of social inclusion of young people with learning disabilities. Yet there is limited evidence about the school experience of young people about to leave mainstream as compared with segregated education, and how it impacts on their relative view of self and future aspirations. Sixty young people with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities in their final year of secondary school participated in this study. Twenty-eight individuals came from mainstream schools and 32 attended segregated school. They completed a series of self-report measures on perceptions of stigma, social comparison to a more disabled and non-disabled peer and the likelihood involved in attaining their future goals. The majority of participants from both groups reported experiencing stigmatized treatment in the local area where they lived. The mainstream group reported significant additional stigma at school. In terms of social comparisons, both groups compared themselves positively with a more disabled peer and with a non-disabled peer. While the mainstream pupils had more ambitious work-related aspirations, both groups felt it equally likely that they would attain their future goals. Although the participants from segregated schools came from significantly more deprived areas and had lower scores on tests of cognitive functioning, neither of these factors appeared to have an impact on their experience of stigma, social comparisons or future aspirations. Irrespective of schooling environment, the young people appeared to be able to cope with the threats to their identities and retained a sense of optimism about their future. Nevertheless, negative treatment reported by the children was a serious source of concern and there is a need for schools to promote the emotional well-being of pupils with intellectual disabilities.

Critical slip and time dependence in sea ice friction

Recent research into sea ice friction has focussed on ways to provide a model which maintains much of the clarity and simplicity of Amonton's law, yet also accounts for memory effects. One promising avenue of research has been to adapt the rate- and state- dependent models which are prevalent in rock friction. In such models it is assumed that there is some fixed critical slip displacement, which is effectively a measure of the displacement over which memory effects might be considered important. Here we show experimentally that a fixed critical slip displacement is not a valid assumption in ice friction, whereas a constant critical slip time appears to hold across a range of parameters and scales. As a simple rule of thumb, memory effects persist to a significant level for 10 s. We then discuss the implications of this finding for modelling sea ice friction and for our understanding of friction in general.

Managing a duopolistic water market with confirmed proposals. An experiment

We report results from experimental water markets in which owners of two different sources of water supply water to households and farmers. The final water quality consumed by each type of consumer is determined through mixing of qualities from two different resources. We compare the standard duopolistic market structure with an alternative market clearing mechanism inspired by games with confirmed strategies (which have been shown to yield collusive outcomes). As in the static case, complex dynamic markets operating under a confirmed proposals protocol yield less efficient outcomes because coordination among independent suppliers has the usual effects of restricting output and increasing prices to the users. Our results suggest that, when market mechanisms are used to allocate water to its users, the rule of thumb used by competition authorities can also serve as a guide towards water market regulation.