Germanic Mythology in Music: Cultural Memory and Conflict within the Framework of Modern Globalization

The multi-layered enactment of a national past in music has been strongly intertwined with the usage of mythological elements. Having often been compiled as a coherent narrative during the emergence of the European nation-states (like the Finnish Kalevala), the mythological material has often been perceived as a form of historical truth and national justification. This focal role is also apparent in various music genres ranging from folk revival to metal in post-1989 Europe. Within the globalized context, however, local-national interpretations can collide with earlier nationalist appropriations. This complex and sometimes politically conflicting situation becomes particularly evident with groups falling back on symbols and narrations that had previously been employed by Nazi-Germany. While Nazi-Germany had, among others, tried replace the Christmas tradition with elements and songs from Germanic (and other) mythological sources, modern Neo-Nazi music groups often employ central mythological names (like Odin or Tyr) and iconic elements (like Vikings and warriors) in song lyrics and CD cover designs. However, while many covers and lyrics are legally forbidden in Germany, Scandinavian and Baltic groups (like the Faroese Viking metal group Tyr and the Latvian pagan metal band Skyforger) employ similar elements of Norse mythology, which are often combined with traditional material. Discussing selected case studies, this paper highlights central discursive points of colliding historical-national associations and individual interpretations of the mythological elements in musical contexts. How far can the material be disassociated from the earlier historical political usage and instrumentalization? Is this necessary ? And how can the specific global-local conflict points be approached by a theoretical framework ?

Axial suspension test to assess pre-operative spinal flexibility in patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis.

INTRODUCTION An accurate description of the biomechanical behavior of the spine is crucial for the planning of scoliotic surgical correction as well as for the understanding of degenerative spine disorders. The current clinical assessments of spinal mechanics such as side-bending or fulcrum-bending tests rely on the displacement of the spine observed during motion of the patient. Since these tests focused solely on the spinal kinematics without considering mechanical loads, no quantification of the mechanical flexibility of the spine can be provided. METHODS A spinal suspension test (SST) has been developed to simultaneously monitor the force applied on the spine and the induced vertebral displacements. The system relies on cervical elevation of the patient and orthogonal radiographic images are used to measure the position of the vertebras. The system has been used to quantify the spinal flexibility on five AIS patients. RESULTS Based on the SST, the overall spinal flexibility varied between 0.3 °/Nm for the patient with the stiffer curve and 2 °/Nm for the less rigid curve. A linear correlation was observed between the overall spinal flexibility and the change in Cobb angle. In addition, the segmental flexibility calculated for five segments around the apex was 0.13 ± 0.07 °/Nm, which is similar to intra-operative stiffness measurements previously published. CONCLUSIONS In summary, the SST seems suitable to provide pre-operative information on the complex functional behavior and stiffness of spinal segments under physiological loading conditions. Such tools will become increasingly important in the future due to the ever-increasing complexity of the surgical instrumentation and procedures.

Hydrogen atom in space with a compactified extra dimension and potential defined by Gauss' law

We investigate the consequences of one extra spatial dimension for the stability and energy spectrum of the non-relativistic hydrogen atom with a potential defined by Gauss' law, i.e. proportional to 1 /| x | 2 . The additional spatial dimension is considered to be either infinite or curled-up in a circle of radius R. In both cases, the energy spectrum is bounded from below for charges smaller than the same critical value and unbounded from below otherwise. As a consequence of compactification, negative energy eigenstates appear: if R is smaller than a quarter of the Bohr radius, the corresponding Hamiltonian possesses an infinite number of bound states with minimal energy extending at least to the ground state of the hydrogen atom.

The public health applications of law enforcement medical direction: A practical experience with the Dallas Police Department

In 2008, 132 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty in The United States. Additionally, some have explored both the public health implications of interactions with law enforcement as well as the potential benefits of the use of law enforcement officers as public health and emergency healthcare providers. By virtue of these novel analyses and techniques, professional medical direction of the emerging specialty of law enforcement medicine is needed. This paper, an analysis of law enforcement medical direction through a look at the Dallas Police Medical Direction Program, seeks to examine origins of law enforcement medicine through a comprehensive literature review, as well as begin to define to core competencies of law enforcement medical direction. ^ The unique intersection of public health, medicine and law enforcement, and the subsequent specialty that is developing to manage this interface, is in its relative infancy. An analysis of this nature is in order to begin to lay down the foundations necessary for future study and improvements in the field. ^

Women’s experiences with the use of medical abortion in a legally restricted context: the case of Argentina

This article presents the findings of a qualitative study exploring the experiences of women living in Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, Argentina, with the use of misoprostol for inducing an abortion. We asked women about the range of decisions they had to make, their emotions, the physical experience, strategies they needed to use, including seeking health care advice and in dealing with a clandestine medical abortion, and their overall evaluation of the experience. An in-depth interview schedule was used. The women had either used misoprostol and sought counselling or care at a public hospital (n=24) or had used misoprostol based on the advice of a local hotline, information from the internet or from other women (n=21). Four stages in the women’s experiences were identified: how the decision to terminate the pregnancy was taken, how the medication was obtained, how the tablets were used, and reflections on the outcome whether or not they sought medical advice. Safety and privacy were key in deciding to use medical abortion. Access to the medication was the main obstacle, requiring a prescription or a friendly drugstore. Correct information about the number of pills to use and dosage intervals was the least easy to obtain and caused concerns. The possibility of choosing a time of privacy and having the company of a close one was highlighted as a unique advantage of medical abortion. Efforts to improve abortion law, policy and service provision in Argentina in order to ensure the best possible conditions for use of medical abortion by women should be redoubled.

The future obligations of "project manager" as construction integral director (DIPE) in the law of buildings construction in spain (LOE)

In the year 1999 approves the Law of Construction Building (LOE, in Spanish) to regulate a sector such as construction, which contained some shortcomings from the legal point of view. Currently, the LOE has been in force 12 years, changing the spanish world of the construction, due to influenced by internationalization. Within the LOE, there regulating the different actors involved in the construction building, as the Projects design, the Director of Construction, the developer, The builder, Director of execution of the construction (actor only in Spain, similar as construcion engineer and abroad in), control entities and the users, but lacks figure Project manager will assume the delegation of the promoter helping and you organize, direct and management the process. This figure assumes that the market and contracts are not legally regulated in Spain, then should define and establish its regulation in the LOE. (Spain Construction Law) The translation in spanish of the words "Project Manager is owed to Professor Rafael de Heredia in his book Integrated Project Management, as agent acting on behalf of the organization and promoter assuming control of the project, ie Integraded Project Management . Already exist in Spain, AEDIP (Spanish Association Integrated of Project Construction management) which comprises the major companies in “Project Management” in Spain, and MeDIP (Master in Integrated Construction Project) the largest and most advanced studies at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, in "Construction Project Management" they teach which is also in Argentina. The Integrated Project ("Project Management") applied to the construction process is a methodological technique that helps to organize, control and manage the resources of the promoters in the building process. When resources are limited (which is usually most situations) to manage them efficiently becomes very important. Well, we find that in this situation, the resources are not only limited, but it is limited, so a comprehensive control and monitoring of them becomes not only important if not crucial. The alternative of starting from scratch with a team that specializes in developing these follow directly intervening to ensure that scarce resources are used in the best possible way requires the use of a specific methodology (Manual DIP, Matrix Foreign EDR breakdown structure EDP Project, Risk Management and Control, Design Management, et ..), that is the methodology used by "Projects managers" to ensure that the initial objectives of the promoters or investors are met and all actors in process, from design to construction company have the mind aim of the project will do, trying to get their interests do not prevail over the interests of the project. Among the agents listed in the building process, "Project Management" or DIPE (Director Comprehensive building process, a proposed name for possible incorporation into the LOE, ) currently not listed as such in the LOE (Act on Construction Planning ), one of the agents that exist within the building process is not regulated from the legal point of view, no obligations, ie, as is required by law to have a project, a builder, a construction management, etc. DIPE only one who wants to hire you as have been advanced knowledge of their services by the clients they have been hiring these agents, there being no legal obligation as mentioned above, then the market is dictating its ruling on this new figure, as if it were necessary, he was not hired and eventually disappeared from the building process. As the aim of this article is regular the process and implement the name of DIPE in the Spanish Law of buildings construction (LOE)

Analytical bearing capacity of strip footing in weightless materials with power-law failure criteria

Sokolovskii’s method of characteristics is extended to provide analytical solutions for the ultimate load at the moment of plastic failure under plane-strain conditions of shallow strip foundations on weightless rigid-plastic media with a noncohesive power-law failure envelope. The formulation is made parametrically in terms of the instantaneous friction angle, and the key idea to obtain the bearing capacity is that information can be transmitted from the free surface (where external loads are known) to the contact plane of the foundation. The methodology can consider foundations adjacent to a slope, external surcharges at the free surface, and inclined loads (both on the slope and on the foundation). Sensitivity analyses illustrate the influence on bearing capacity of changes in the different geometrical parameters involved. An application example is presented and design plots are provided, and model predictions are compared with results of bearing capacity tests under low gravity.

Difference Blindness vs. Bias Awareness: Why Law Firms with the Best of Intentions Have Failed to Create Diverse Partnerships

This Article uses the example of BigLaw firms to explore the challenges that many elite organizations face in providing equal opportunity to their workers. Despite good intentions and the investment of significant resources, large law firms have been consistently unable to deliver diverse partnership structures - especially in more senior positions of power. Building on implicit and institutional bias scholarship and on successful approaches described in the organizational behavior literature, we argue that a significant barrier to systemic diversity at the law firm partnership level has been, paradoxically, the insistence on difference blindness standards that seek to evaluate each person on their individual merit. While powerful in dismantling intentional discrimination, these standards rely on an assumption that lawyers are, and have the power to act as, atomistic individuals - a dangerous assumption that has been disproven consistently by the literature establishing the continuing and powerful influence of implicit and institutional bias. Accordingly, difference blindness, which holds all lawyers accountable to seemingly neutral standards, disproportionately disadvantages diverse populations and normalizes the dominance of certain actors - here, white men - by creating the illusion that success or failure depends upon individual rather than structural constraints. In contrast, we argue that a bias awareness approach that encourages identity awareness and a relational framework is a more promising way to promote equality, equity, and inclusion.

Laws made and past by William Penn: Absolute Proprietary and Governour in Chief of the province of Pennsylvania and territories thereunto belonging, with the advice and consent of the freemen thereof in genrall assembly met at Newcastle...1700....and [as amended] at Philadelphia...1701

Contains one of the few original copies of Penn's laws as first passed and as revised and extended in the following year. During the interval between the two Assemblies, while Penn was absent in England, the first series of laws were found to be impracticable, and new amendments were made for which Penn had no choice but to agree to.

The Italian Merck Case. Research Papers in Law, 1/2007

From the Introduction. Regulation 1768/921 created supplementary protection certificates (hereinafter, ‘SPCs’) for medicinal products (hereinafter, “pharmaceuticals”) protected by patents. SPCs afford the same exclusive rights as those conferred by patents once these expire and may be granted for a maximum of five years.2 Italy enacted similar legislation in 1991, the most salient difference between both texts being that, pursuant to Law No. 349/91,3 holders of Italian patents for pharmaceuticals could be granted supplementary protection for a maximum period of 18 years after the expiration of the patent. Following the enactment of Regulation 1768/92, SPCs granted by the Italian authorities were brought in line with the period provided for in that text. However, pharmaceuticals for which supplementary protection was sought in the lapse between the adoption of Law No. 349/91 and Regulation 1768/92 (around 400 products) continued to enjoy the protection provided for in the former text.4 Several steps were taken by the Italian authorities to progressively reduce the length of protection granted to these products.

Mass Surveillance of Personal Data by EU Member States and its Compatibility with EU Law. CEPS Liberty and Security in Europe No. 61, 6 November 2013

In the wake of the disclosures surrounding PRISM and other US surveillance programmes, this paper assesses the large-scale surveillance practices by a selection of EU member states: the UK, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Given the large-scale nature of these practices, which represent a reconfiguration of traditional intelligence gathering, the paper contends that an analysis of European surveillance programmes cannot be reduced to a question of the balance between data protection versus national security, but has to be framed in terms of collective freedoms and democracy. It finds that four of the five EU member states selected for in-depth examination are engaging in some form of large-scale interception and surveillance of communication data, and identifies parallels and discrepancies between these programmes and the NSA-run operations. The paper argues that these programmes do not stand outside the realm of EU intervention but can be analysed from an EU law perspective via i) an understanding of national security in a democratic rule of law framework where fundamental human rights and judicial oversight constitute key norms; ii) the risks posed to the internal security of the Union as a whole as well as the privacy of EU citizens as data owners and iii) the potential spillover into the activities and responsibilities of EU agencies. The paper then presents a set of policy recommendations to the European Parliament.

The ICC and its Deteriorating Relationship with Africa in Light of the Kenya Cases: What Should the EU Position be? IES Policy Brief Issue 2013/09 • November 2013

Summary. The African Union (AU), a union consisting of 54 African States, held an Extraordinary Summit on 11-12 October 2013, to discuss its relationship with the International Criminal Court (ICC or the Court). The meeting took place just weeks before the trial of Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta is scheduled to begin, and was clearly intended to voice discontent and put on hold the ongoing ICC proceedings against Kenyatta as well as his deputy, Vice-President William Ruto. Before the Summit, there were even widespread rumors that the Assembly of the AU would call for a mass withdrawal of African States Parties from the ICC Statute. Eventually, the Assembly did not go that far and took two important, but less controversial decisions. It called for the granting of immunities to Heads of States from prosecutions by international criminal tribunals and requested a deferral of the ICC cases against Kenyatta and Ruto through a resolution adopted by the UN Security Council (UNSC). After providing a background to the Kenya cases, this policy brief aims to evaluate what the position of the EU and its Member States as outspoken supporters of the ICC and the fight against impunity should be, especially given the fact that France and the UK, as permanent UNSC members, could block a UNSC deferral at any time.

The Legal Construction of Membership: Nationality Law in Germany and the United States. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers No. 00.5, 2000

The argument of this paper is that several empirical puzzles in the citizenship literature are rooted in the failure to distinguish between the mainly legal concept of nationality and the broader, political concept of citizenship. Using this distinction, the paper analysis the evolution of German and American nationality laws over the last 200 years. The historical development of both legal structures shows strong communalities. With the emergence of the modern system of nation states, the attribution of nationality to newborn children is ascribed either via the principle of descent or place of birth. With regard to the naturalization of adults, there is an increasing ethnization of law, which means that the increasing complexities of naturalization criteria are more and more structured along ethnic ideas. Although every nation building process shows some elements of ethnic self-description, it is difficult to use the legal principles of ius sanguinis and ius soli as indicators of ethnic or non-ethnic modes of community building.