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Human rights in conflicts and crises: derogation under human rights treaties
No full textThe thesis analyses the conditions for valid derogation and evaluates whether the prevailing interpretation of derogation clauses under the ICCPR, ECHR and ACHR adequately supports the effective protection of human rights. Derogation is a mechanism under which States may, if certain conditions are satisfied, adopt measures that would violate rights if adopted in normal times. Interpretation of the derogation clauses traces the contours of rights protection in conflicts and crises.The first chapter provides a normative compass to guide thinking about derogation. It addresses the argument that human rights laws have no business regulating states of exception and proposes that derogation clauses can, if carefully interpreted, play an important role in achieving the aims of human rights treaties. The second chapter articulates a framework for understanding derogation as a doctrinal concept. It promotes distinguishing limitations from derogations and advocates the separation of purported and valid derogation.Chapters three to five articulate and evaluate the conditions for valid derogation. Chapter three seeks to identify and critically evaluate the circumstances likely to meet the threshold for valid derogation. Chapter four considers limiting conditions – what States may and may not do through derogation measures. The thesis posits that, although threshold and strict necessity have been viewed as central aspects of derogation, those criteria leave considerable scope for deference to States and other, more technical, criteria for valid derogation ought not to be neglected.Chapter five argues that there is considerable unclarity about the status of procedural requirements under the derogation clauses. In particular, it argues that adequate notification ought to be viewed as a condition for valid derogation, despite lingering uncertainty about this in the case law. This promotes the derogation clause as a tool for accountability when States take measures exceptionally restrictive of rights in times of conflict and crisis
Naturalism, theism, and the neurological basis of religious experience
Get PDFThe two primary aims of this thesis are constructive and defensive. The constructive aim is to articulate a positive account of religious experience which captures both direct and mediated experiences of God, and provides a model of divine action in religious experience which harmonizes the claim that religious experiences have sufficient neural causes with the Thomistic view that God supernaturally elevates the person by grace in religious experience. The defensive aim is to respond to naturalistic objections derived from recent research into the sciences of the mind. The chapters proceed as follows. In Chapter one I argue that the deductive version of the naturalistic objection fails. In Chapter two I articulate and defend a Thomistic account of divine action—the Divine Assistance Model—utilizing new criteria of adequacy for theories of divine action drawn from the theology of grace. In Chapter three I argue that, depending on how the evidence from religious experience is individuated, either the inductive version of the naturalistic objection narrowly supports naturalism or moderately supports theism. Chapter four examines two naturalistic objections featuring recent data in the anthropology and psychology of religion —a debunking argument and the recognitional challenge to perceiving God; in this chapter I argue that both arguments fail. Chapter five develops a perceptual framework for mediated experiences, generally, and then applies this framework to musical religious experiences, specifically. Chapter six defends the possibility of a “conjunctive" account of mental disorder and religious experience from recent objections. Chapter seven argues that the veridicality and epistemic safety of psychedelic-induced religious experiences depends on the underlying metaphysic: while psychedelic-induced Christian theistic experiences appears to produce unsafe beliefs, some Buddhist non-theistic and Hindu pantheistic experiences can be epistemically safe
WABAD: A world annotated bird acoustic dataset for passive acoustic monitoring
Get PDFUnder the current global biodiversity crisis, there is a need for automated and noninvasive monitoring techniques that can gather large amounts of data cost‐effectively at various ecological scales, from local to large spatial scales. These data can then be analyzed to inform stakeholders and decision‐makers. One such technique is passive acoustic monitoring, which is commonly coupled with automatic identification of animal species based on their sound. Automated sound analyses usually require the training of sound detection and identification algorithms. These algorithms are based on annotated acoustic datasets which mark the occurrence of sounds of species inside sound recordings. However, compiling large annotated acoustic datasets is time‐consuming and requires experts, and therefore, they normally cover reduced spatial, temporal, and taxonomic scales. This data paper presents WABAD, the World Annotated Bird Acoustic Dataset for passive acoustic monitoring. WABAD is designed to provide the public, the research community, and conservation managers with a novel and globally representative annotated acoustic dataset. This database includes 5047 min of audio files annotated to species‐level by local experts with the start and end time and the upper and lower frequencies of each identified bird vocalization in the recordings. The database has a wide taxonomic and spatial coverage, including information on 91,931 vocalizations from 1192 bird species recorded at 72 recording sites in 29 recording locations (mainly countries) and distributed across 13 biomes. WABAD can be used, for example, for developing and/or validating automatic species detection algorithms, answering ecological questions, such as assessing geographical variations on bird vocalizations, or comparing acoustic diversity indices with species‐based diversity indices. The dataset is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license that permits redistribution and reuse on the condition that the original work is properly credited
A Community Intervention to Increase Positive Parenting: A Three-Year Cohort Study in South Africa
Get PDFObjective: We evaluated an intervention to increase positive parenting, reduce corporal punishment, and improve children's mental health community-wide. All Parenting for Lifelong Health programmes were available to all interested parents alongside an action media intervention designed to amplify positive parenting messages across the community. Method: Three community-wide surveys of parents and of children aged 10+ were conducted at baseline and at 18-month intervals. Parent and child surveys assessed parenting and corporal punishment; parent surveys also addressed intimate partner violence (IPV), parent and child mental health, parent alcohol misuse, and parenting stress. Results: 536 parent-child dyads were included in the surveys; 110 (20.5%) parents attended a parenting programme at least once. Positive parenting did not increase across the whole community; there was a trend towards reduction of corporal punishment. Parenting stress declined and children's mental health improved by the third survey, possibly through increased parent employment rather than the intervention. IPV, parent mental health, and parent alcohol misuse were unchanged, and were associated with less positive parenting and more children's mental health symptoms. The action media process may indeed have enabled diffusion of parenting information, but also appeared to be associated with small negative effects on positive parenting, parenting stress and children's internalising and externalising. Conclusions: Reduction in parenting stress, a trend towards a reduction in corporal punishment, and improvement in children's mental health, were observed by year three. Parents' mental health, substance abuse and IPV must be addressed alongside parenting interventions to improve both parenting and children's mental health
Methods and Instruments to Measure ICU Healthcare Professionals' Workload Related to Medical Technology—Protocol for a Scoping Review
Get PDFBackground: Healthcare systems increasingly adopt medical technologies in direct patient care, particularly in highly technological environments like intensive care units (ICUs). While these technologies aim to enhance clinical outcomes, they can also introduce complexities that affect healthcare professionals' workload. Measuring workload related to the use of medical technology is crucial to ensure technologies support rather than hinder care delivery. Workload in this context encompasses temporal demands, subtask frequency and cognitive demands—distinct from scoring systems determining staffing ratios. Aim: To identify methods and instruments to measure ICU healthcare professionals' workload during direct patient care activities involving medical technology. Study Design: We will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute framework and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta‐Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines, using narrative synthesis to summarise findings. Electronic databases MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, ISI Web of Science, the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform and Google Scholar will be searched for studies published 2010–2025 reporting primary data. Exclusion criteria: paediatric population, editorials, letters and patient‐based scoring systems (e.g., Therapeutic Intervention Scoring System–76; Nursing Activities Score). Two reviewers will independently screen records and extract data using standardised forms. Reporting quality will be assessed using a self‐developed tool. Findings will be presented in a flowchart, tables and figures. Relevance to Clinical Practice: This review will provide a comprehensive overview of workload measurement methods during direct patient care activities involving medical technology in ICUs, serving as a practical resource for evaluating the workload impact of existing and emerging technologies. Review Registration: Open Science Framework, registered on 26th of September 2024 (registration DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/2A97J, https://osf.io/2a97j/
Line operators in U(1|1) Chern-Simons theory
Get PDFWe analyze the non-semisimple category of line operators in Chern-Simons gauge theories based off the Lie superalgebra gl(1|1). Our proposal is that the category of line operators C can be identified with the derived category of modules for a boundary vertex operator algebra V realized as a certain infinite-order simple current extension of the affine current algebra V (gl(1|1)) by boundary monopole operators. By translating this simple current extension of V (gl(1|1)) to the unrolled, restricted quantum group U E (gl(1|1)), we show that our category of line operators admits a second description in terms of a quasi-quantum group A realized by uprolling. We also compare our results across an expected physical duality with the cyclic orbifold of a free, B-twisted hypermultiplet and find a slight discrepancy at the level of braiding and associator. We end with a detailed analysis of coupling to background flat GL(1, C) connections and the resulting category of non-genuine line operators
Wiener-Pitt sets for compact Abelian groups
Get PDFSuppose that G is a compact Hausdorff Abelian group. We say µ ∈ M(G) is strongly continuous if |µ|(x + H) = 0 for any x ∈ G and any H ≤ G that is closed and of infinite index. We prove that for any sufficiently rapidly decreasing sequence (an)∞ n=1 ∈ c0(N), for every strongly continuous µ ∈ M(G) with ∥µ∥ ≤ 1 and µb(Gb) ⊂ {an : n ∈ N} ∪ {0}, the measure µ ∗ µ is absolutely continuous with respect to Haar measure on G. This implies that µ does not exhibit the so-called Wiener-Pitt phenomenon. The paper is a continuation of investigations started in the article ‘On the relationships between Fourier-Stieltjes coefficients and spectra of measures’ published in 2014
Long‐Lived Photoluminescence of Photostable One‐Dimensional Picoperovskites
Get PDFWe study one‐dimensional metal halide perovskite crystals encapsulated in single‐wall nanotubes, so‐called picoperovskites, using optical spectroscopy. Polarized micro‐photoluminescence (PL) reveals bright emission from aligned bundles of picoperovskites with clear linear polarization along the bundle axis. This emission is redshifted with respect to bulk perovskite samples using the same constituents. Temperature‐dependent, time‐resolved micro‐PL shows extraordinarily long PL lifetimes of the picoperovskites at low temperatures, reaching several hundred nanoseconds and exceeding those of bulk perovskites by two orders of magnitude
MOGAD in South Wales: Diagnostic Evolution and Disease Epidemiology
Get PDFBackground: Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody‐associated disease (MOGAD) is a rare antibody‐mediated inflammatory demyelinating disorder. In 2023, new international consensus diagnostic criteria were agreed. This study uses these criteria to describe epidemiological features of MOGAD in a population‐based cohort of patients from south Wales, UK. Methods: Retrospective review of case notes on all positive MOG‐IgG results in South Wales between 01 January 2011 and 30 June 2024 was undertaken, 2023 diagnostic criteria applied and standardised clinical features recorded. Paediatric MOGAD was defined as age at onset < 16 years and adult MOGAD ≥ 16 years. The incidence period was between 01 January 2015 and 31 December 2023. Results: Seventy‐six prevalent cases were identified: 53 adults and 23 children. Minimum estimated prevalence of MOGAD in south Wales on 30 June 2024 was 76/1,974,110 population (3.85/100,000 population; 95% CI 3.03–4.82). Paediatric prevalence was 6.59/100,000 population (95% CI 4.18–9.89) and adult prevalence 3.26/100,000 population (95% CI 2.44–4.27). Sex ratio was almost equal in males and females. The most frequent presentations were optic neuritis in adults (62.3%) and ADEM in children (34.8%); 64.5% had a monophasic disease course over a median follow‐up of 38 months (IQR 13–63). Mean annual incidence was 3.39 (95% CI 2.58–4.39) per million population. Conclusions: This regional study provides updated prevalence and incidence rates for MOGAD since the introduction of 2023 diagnostic criteria in a stable south Wales, UK population