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The Attorney-General, contempt of court and political bias
No full textPoliticians appear increasingly willing to comment on active legal cases – in traditional or new media – in ways which may interfere with the administration of justice.For example, during the 2016 manslaughter trial of an NHS Trust and anaesthetist for the death of Frances Cappuccini, Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, tweeted Ms Cappuccini’s picture and wrote ‘Tragic case from which huge lessons must be learned’. The trial judge ordered Hunt to remove the tweet saying ‘in a very serious case, it could be regarded as a contempt of court’.Similarly, before the conclusion of Andy Coulson’s trial for conspiracy to cause misconduct in public office, David Cameron made a televised apology for employing him, saying that Coulson had given ‘false assurances’. The judge ‘expressed his dismay’ at the statement, and noted that ‘politicians from across the political spectrum’ had commented about Coulson during the trial.Cameron was previously criticised for saying he was a ‘massive fan’ of Nigella Lawson during the fraud trial of two of Lawson’s assistants. The trial judge instructed the jury to ignore Cameron’s comments calling them ‘regrettable’.When published, such comments may create ‘a substantial risk that the course of justice in ... proceedings … will be seriously impeded or prejudiced’, a contempt under the Contempt of Court Act 1981. Proceedings for such a contempt ‘shall not be instituted except by or with the consent of the Attorney General or on the motion of a court having jurisdiction to deal with it’.In this paper, I review the Attorney General’s role in cases where a contempt may be committed by a political colleague or opponent. I consider the rationale underlying the AG’s role in contempt cases, the legitimacy of his/her role in political cases, whether a charge of political bias would be inevitable and possible alternatives
Happiness perceptions — A comparison 1938 and 2014
No full textThis chapter outlines the findings from the Worktown (1938) and Bolton (2014) Happiness data. The frequency of happiness and the role of luck were similar. There were differences between the two databases in the time of the week and the place that residents were happiest. The ranking of the 10 Aspects of Happiness changed with Good Humour and Leisure moving into the top 3, whilst Knowledge and Religion went to lower positions in 2014. Qualitative analysis of happiness letters and comments revealed different categorical frequencies, with contentment and peace of mind being the highest in Worktown and free time activities in 2014 Bolton. The aspects of change and continuity in the perceptions of happiness are explored and possible explanations are discussed
Heterogeneous graph based parallel and distributed data management system for application in fraud detection
No full textWith the rapid development of IT technologies, most organizations have their own IT system to record different kinds of data in an organization. Individuals also collect and share data through the Internet. How to manage such a large amount of data and how to make a good use of it becomes a key challenge in knowledge management. As datasets become larger and more complex the ability to process them efficiently without loss or misinterpretation of information becomes a major challenge with current knowledge management systems. The thesis describes a knowledge management system, which attempts to overcome these problems by developing a new and innovative system architecture and algorithms which will enable distributed data storage and parallel processing. The contribution to knowledge will be: 1). develop a basis for data management system architecture based on heterogeneous graph, distributed storage and parallel processing technologies. 2). Develop a basis for knowledge finding an sharing system based on entropy based clustering and attribute selection technologies. 3). Develop a fraud detection prototype system which will used the proposed data management and knowledge finding method.The developed new and innovative system architecture consists of two parts:storage subsystem and knowledge clustering subsystem. The storage system focuses on two key issues: avoidance of data duplication, and optimization for parallel processing.Since the volume of the dataset may be very large, the storage sub-system has to avoid data duplication and needs to be located quickly. This is achieved by the use of multi dataset schemas to describe the dataset and index the dataset. The index associated with each schema enables the data to be located rapidly. In order to optimize for parallel processing, distributed storage and index technologies are incorporated into the system.In the knowledge clustering subsystem, a heterogeneous graph is used to describe a body of knowledge with the node representing individual components of the knowledge and the edge representing the linkage between those components. The thesis proposes a feature selection model, combines the graph attribute and graph structure together. The model for the heterogeneous knowledge graph can deal with the incomplete attributes across knowledge and different types of link, according to a user specified attribute parameters.The thesis gives an example of a prototype knowledge management system for fraud detection to combine all the ideas together and evaluate all the proposed idea
Climate change and future precipitation in an arid environment of the Middle East: case study of Iraq
No full textIn this paper impact of climate change on precipitation in the arid environment of Iraq is examined.LARS-WG weather generator was applied to 5 representative regions to model current and future precipitation under climate change. Seven Global Climate Models (GCMs) have been employed to account for any uncertainty on future projection for three selected periods, 2011-2030, 2046-2065 and 2080-2099. Performance of LARS-WG in each site was first evaluated using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistical test for fitting wet/dry days in each site, as well as comparison of the mean and standard deviation between the observed and simulated precipitation. The developed LARS-WG models were found to perform well and skilful in simulating precipitation in the arid regions of Iraq as evidenced by the tests carried and the comparison made. The precipitation models were then used to obtain future projections for precipitation using the IPCC scenario SRES A2. Future precipitation results show that most of the Iraq regions are projected to suffer a reduction in annual mean precipitation, especially by the end of the 21st century, while on a seasonal basis most of the regions are anticipated to be better in autumn and winter
Modeling economic growth with tourism for small open economies
No full textThe purpose of the paper is to develop an economic growth model and analyze the impact of changes in tourists’ income on the growth of tourism dependent small open economies. We use a general theoretical construct to answer the question of how the price elasticity of tourism demand, income elasticity of tourism demand, and the concentration in the service sector influence the economic development of small economies. One of the main results is that the policy planners in small open economies may consider specific policies to influence the strength of market competition. An ensuing effect of such policies is that the labor incomes will increase. The approach provides a microeconomic foundation for macroeconomic modeling which can be used for applied research, and the model can be easily extended to examine other dimensions of economic development
Website blocking orders post Cartier v B Sky B: an analysis of the legal basis for these injunctions and the potential scope of this remedy against other tortious acts
No full textIn Cartier v. B Sky B the Court of Appeal upheld the granting of website blocking injunctions against internet service providers (ISPs) where the target websites were selling counterfeit goods contrary to EU law. Due to Kitchin L.J. finding a purely domestic basis on which to grant this remedy it raises the prospect of these injunctions being used against other tortious acts
In situ coupling of Ti2O with rutile TiO2 as a core–shell structure and its photocatalysis performance
No full textThe fabrication of high-performance, low-cost photocatalysis materials, which absorb in the visible-light region, is of significance for their practical applications. A Ti2O@TiO2 (rutile) core–shell structure was fabricated through dehydrogenation and oxidation from TiH2. Thermal analysis indicates that a bimodal oxidation behavior accounts for the formation of a bi-phasic composite. The response of the composite under UV and visible light was measured by PL (photoluminescence) spectra and a photo-degradation test. A pronounced improvement in photo-degradation performance is attributed to the synergistic function of exciton separation of the core–shell structure and the visible light response of the Ti2O cores
John Stuart Mill and leisure
No full textJohn Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was a major philosopher of Victorian Britain. This chapter discusses his importance to leisure studies through a critical analysis of three of his works, On Liberty, Utilitarianism and The Subjection of Women. The first of these deals with the idea of leisure as freedom and addresses the question of when, or if, the state or any individual has the right to prohibit a person whose actions in leisure harm no one but himself. In Utilitarianism, Mill presents a strong critique of Jeremy Bentham’s Greatest Happiness Principle and argues that some forms of leisure are preferable to others, though in doing so appears to support the function of a leisure class. In The Subjection of Women, Mill argues that gender is a social construction that has denied women of equal status to men, anticipating modern feminist analyses of leisure
Impact of exploitation of ICT in the Malawi Hotel sector
No full textThe tourism industry is an information-based sector and relies heavily on information and communication technologies to communicate across various players in the value chain.However, there hasn’t been a systematic analysis and empirical research on the hotel industry in Malawi and the impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) exploitation on its competitiveness, enhancing competitive advantage, and upgrading of internal business processes. This paper presents partial results of a study into PHD on the Impact of ICT exploitation in the Tourism Value Chain and focuses on the exploitation of ICT in the Malawi hotel sector. The research involved a self-administered questionnaire survey of 96 hotels in Malawi. The findings from the empirical study suggest that the majority of hotels have some form ICT strategy, are using basic ICT hardware such as personal computer and laptop as an entry point into the virtual world, and using ICT for functional areas of business including human resources management, financial management and marketing their services and products. In addition, there are a number of challenges faced by hotels in Malawi including expensive ICT infrastructure, lack of expertise and technical knowhow in ICT, limited investments in ICT applications and software, and limited telecommunications infrastructure
Noninvasive detection of increased carotid artery temperature in patients with coronary artery disease predicts major cardiovascular events at one year: Results from a prospective multicenter study
No full textBackground and aims Limited prospective data have been reported regarding the impact of carotid inflammation on cardiovascular events in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). Microwave radiometry (MWR) is a noninvasive, simple method that has been used for evaluation of carotid artery temperature which, when increased, predicts ‘inflamed’ plaques with vulnerable characteristics. We prospectively tested the hypothesis that increased carotid artery temperature predicts future cerebro- and cardiovascular events in patients with CAD.Methods Consecutive patients from 3 centers, with documented CAD by coronary angiography, were studied. In both carotid arteries, common carotid intima-media thickness and plaque thickness were evaluated by ultrasound. Temperature difference (ΔT), measured by MWR, was considered as the maximal temperature along the carotid artery minus the minimum; ΔT ≥0.90 °C was assigned as high. Major cardiovascular events (MACE, death, stroke, myocardial infarction or revascularization) were recorded during the following year.Results In total, 250 patients were studied; of them 40 patients (16%) had high ΔT values in both carotid arteries. MACEs occurred in 30% of patients having bilateral high ΔT versus 3.8% in the remaining patients (p<0.001). Bilateral high ΔT was independently associated with increased one-year MACE rate (HR = 6.32, 95% CI 2.42–16.53, p<0.001, by multivariate cox regression hazard model). The addition of ΔT information on a baseline model based on cardiovascular risk factors and extent of CAD significantly increased the prognostic value of the model (c-statistic increase 0.744 to 0.845, pdif = 0.05) Conclusions Carotid inflammation, detected by MWR, has an incremental prognostic value in patients with documented CAD