Employer occupation of regulatory space of the Employee Information and Consultation (I&C) Directive in liberal market economies

This article shows how both employers and the state have influenced macro-level processes and structures concerning the content and transposition of the European Union (EU) Employee Information and Consultation (I&C) Directive. It argues that the processes of regulation occupied by employers reinforce a voluntarism which marginalizes rather than shares decision-making power with workers. The contribution advances the conceptual lens of ‘regulatory space’ by building on Lukes’ multiple faces of power to better understand how employment regulation is determined across transnational, national and enterprise levels. The research proposes an integrated analytical framework on which ‘occupancy’ of regulatory space can be evaluated in comparative national contexts.

Meaningful and Effective? Considering Victims’ Interests Through Participation at the International Criminal Court

This article explores the role of victims in the criminal proceedings of the International Criminal Court and the extent to which their interests have impacted upon the ICC judges’ decision making in light of human rights law and victimological theorisation. The article begins by first outlining how victims’ interests can be considered in international criminal proceedings, before contrasting this role with the purpose of international criminal justice. The second part of the article examines victim participation within the ICC and how this has affected judicial decision making to assess its effectiveness. The contest between the rights of victims and the role of Prosecutor in determining the selection of charges and perpetrators is also examined in an effort to add to the current debate on victim participation at the ICC. The author finds that at the ICC, despite innovative victim provisions, victims’ interests have little impact on outcomes of the Court. The author argues that in order to ensure the Court is more responsive to victims understanding of justice it should give greater weight to their interests, which in turn is likely to improve their satisfaction with the ICC, as well as public confidence and legitimacy of the work of the Court.

Discussion and debate: Reflections on Pleistocene Island Occupation

Editorial Note: Within a 48-hour period during January 2014, the JMA co-editors received two papers—those of Curtis Runnels and Thomas P. Leppard printed above—that, quite fortuitously, each addressed the topic of Mediterranean island colonization by archaic hominins, albeit from radically different perspectives. Neither author was aware of the other’s paper, nor has either article subsequently been revised to take account of the other. Realizing the widespread current interest in this subject and the possibility for productive debate prompted by such variant approaches, we commissioned three sets of comments and invited Runnels and Leppard to respond. We are pleased to publish this discussion around questions of great importance for our understanding of the earliest insular prehistory of the Mediterranean, and with significant implications reaching well beyond it.

Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 27.2 (2014) 255-278

The Right to Appropriate and meaningful Education for Children with ASD

This paper will explore from a ‘child’s rights perspective’ the ‘right’ of children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) to appropriate and meaningful education.Human ‘rights’ principles within international law will be evaluated in relation to how they have been interpreted and applied in relation to achieving this ‘right’. The International Convention of the Rights of the Child (United Nations in Convention on the rights of the child, office of the high commissioner, United Nations, Geneva, 1989) and the convention on the rights of the person with disability (United Nations in Convention on the rights of person’s with disabilities and optional protocol, office of the high commissioner, United Nations, Geneva, 2006) amongst others will be utilised to argue the case for ‘inclusive’educational opportunities to be a ‘right’ of every child on the autistic spectrum. The efficacy of mainstream inclusion is explored, identifying the position that a ‘one size fits all’model of education is not appropriate for all children with ASD.

Local object gist: meaningful shapes and spatial layout at a very early stage of visual processing

In his introduction, Pinna (2010) quoted one of Wertheimer’s observations: “I stand at the window and see a house, trees, sky. Theoretically I might say there were 327 brightnesses and nuances of color. Do I have ‘327’? No. I have sky, house, and trees.” This seems quite remarkable, for Max Wertheimer, together with Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Koehler, was a pioneer of Gestalt Theory: perceptual organisation was tackled considering grouping rules of line and edge elements in relation to figure-ground segregation, i.e., a meaningful object (the figure) as perceived against a complex background (the ground). At the lowest level – line and edge elements – Wertheimer (1923) himself formulated grouping principles on the basis of proximity, good continuation, convexity, symmetry and, often forgotten, past experience of the observer. Rubin (1921) formulated rules for figure-ground segregation using surroundedness, size and orientation, but also convexity and symmetry. Almost a century of research into Gestalt later, Pinna and Reeves (2006) introduced the notion of figurality, meant to represent the integrated set of properties of visual objects, from the principles of grouping and figure-ground to the colour and volume of objects with shading. Pinna, in 2010, went one important step further and studied perceptual meaning, i.e., the interpretation of complex figures on the basis of past experience of the observer. Re-establishing a link to Wertheimer’s rule about past experience, he formulated five propositions, three definitions and seven properties on the basis of observations made on graphically manipulated patterns. For example, he introduced the illusion of meaning by comics-like elements suggesting wind, therefore inducing a learned interpretation. His last figure shows a regular array of squares but with irregular positions on the right side. This pile of (ir)regular squares can be interpreted as the result of an earthquake which destroyed part of an apartment block. This is much more intuitive, direct and economic than describing the complexity of the array of squares.

First use of multiple substances: Identification of meaningful patterns

Context: Understanding the process through which adolescents and young adults are trying legal and illegal substances is a crucial point for the development of tailored prevention and treatment programs. However, patterns of substance first use can be very complex when multiple substances are considered, requiring reduction into a few meaningful number of categories. Data: We used data from a survey on adolescent and young adult health conducted in 2002 in Switzerland. Answers from 2212 subjects aged 19 and 20 were included. The first consumption ever of 10 substances (tobacco, cannabis, medicine to get high, sniff (volatile substances, and inhalants), ecstasy, GHB, LSD, cocaine, methadone, and heroin) was considered for a grand total of 516 different patterns. Methods: In a first step, automatic clustering was used to decrease the number of patterns to 50. Then, two groups of substance use experts, three social field workers, and three toxicologists and health professionals, were asked to reduce them into a maximum of 10 meaningful categories. Results: Classifications obtained through our methodology are of practical interest by revealing associations invisible to purely automatic algorithms. The article includes a detailed analysis of both final classifications, and a discussion on the advantages and limitations of our approach.

Occupation de Constantinople par les Alliés, à bord d'un navire de guerre anglais, la femme du fils aîné du sultan : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]

Référence bibliographique : Rol, 58870