73 research outputs found
Itai-Itai disease and the countermeasures against cadmium pollution by the Kamioka mine
Full text linkThe Itai-Itai disease case is one of four major pollution-related lawsuits occurring in Japan after World War H. This paper, which is based on investigations of the pollution source, the Kamioka mine, considers (1) the history of the disturbances to the environment caused by the Kamioka mine; (2) the Itai-Itai disease suit; (3) the pollution nprevention measures and methods of the Kamioka mine and refinery; (4) the reduction of cadmium pollution in the Jinzu River; and (5) the actual application of the "polluter pays principle". The authors conclude that the court decision and the agreements between the victims and Mitsui Mining made it possible to control and reduce the damage caused by cadmium pollution and four additional, contributory factors
The New International Frontier: the Legal Profession and the Challenges of New ‘International Law’ in the New Member State
Full text link‘Europeanised international law’ has been the subject of
many recent academic and political discussions on how the EC and
the CJEU should implement and promote international law and what
should apply in the case of conflict between EU law and international
law. What has been somewhat missing from the debate is how legal
professionals in the EU (judges, lawyers and government legal advisers),
and in particular the newcomers to the EU legal system, should
contend with these international developments which have a direct
bearing on their day-to-day work. Following a brief analysis of some
case studies, the article suggests some practical means for legal professionals
to cope with this great challenge and even to make the most
of it. The main argument is that by being aware of the unique and flexible
nature of ‘EU international law’, legal professionals are able not
only to optimise legal outcomes but they can also influence its formation
at this very early stage, opening up opportunities to exert regional
and global legal influence
The kids are running away. From the history of Jewish refugee children during World War II
Full text link"Jeseni 1940, Recha Freier, tvorac zamisli Omladinske Alije a i organizatorka spasavanja jevrejske djece iz Njemačke mi je povjerila misiju brige za tu djecu, dok ne uspiju da odu u Palestinu. Bio sam s tom djecom gotovo pet godina i vodio ih preko tri granice, brinuo se za njih koliko se moglo brinuti u tim godinama 1941-1945. Sve te slike strahota koje su se mogle desiti, i koje su se oko nas i dešavale, sve to još živi u nama" reči su Josefa Itai-Indiga, autora ovog teksta."In the fall of 1940, Recha Freier, the creator of the idea of Youth Alia and the organizer of the rescue of Jewish children from Germany, entrusted me with the mission of caring for these children until they were able to go to Palestine. I was with these children for almost five years and led them across three borders, caring for them as much as could be cared for in those years 1941-1945. All these images of the horrors that could have happened, and which have been happening around us, are still living in us" are the words of Josef Itai-Indig, author of this text
Utilizing International Law to Move the Jeffersons On Up to the East Side--Exploring the Potential of International Law to Support Domestic Social Mobility
Full text linkYes, Global Minister: Towards Modernization of EU-Global Public Administration
No full textPublic servants are at times portrayed as appeasing political masters while aiming for illegitimate political and personal interests (an example that was featured in the British comedy “Yes, Minister”). This misperception demonstrates the balancing act required by public administrations, especially if they truly seek to serve the public. Adding inter- national law, global governance and modernization to the melting pot of EU members renders matters particularly challenging. The paper explores the issues’ theoretical and practical perspectives.Debate begins by examining international law and globalization components of global governance relevant to domestic public administration, including global administra- tive law. This definitional stage is followed by theorizing on how developments affect EU members’ public administration. Moving from theory to practice, the paper next discusses influences of the new global governance, non-state actors on public adminis- tration structures, legal environments and interrelationships. We end the discussion by offering policy proposals, food for thought and proposals for future research directions. In the past, European public servants were subject only to local laws serving local con- stituencies. Today, the same public servants are an integral part of an EU-Global mod- ern public administration serving the globe. This development creates great uncertain- ties, but with proper policies it can be a true blessing for both public administration and the EU-Global publi
International Rights of Older Persons: What Difference Would a New Convention Make to Lives of Older People?
Full text linkThis article tries to answer the following question: What difference, if any, would a new convention on the rights of older persons make to the lives of older people in light of the previous experiences with the Convention on the Eliminations of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)? In order to answer this question, the authors focus on the existing legal literature on international human rights law, with a particular focus on international human rights treaties. To better understand international human rights treaties, the article also discusses the CRC and the CEDAW
Reservations in the Singapore Convention-Helping to Make the New York Dream Come True
Full text linkFollowing a brief introduction of the Singapore Convention, this article discusses the concept of reservations in international law and the importance of such mechanisms for facilitating adherence to multilateral treaties. It then focuses on two elements of the reservation mechanism including their drafting history, purposes, and consequences. In the final section of the article, we explain how these reservations will likely constitute a key component to the success of the Singapore Convention
Yes, Global Minister: Towards Modernization of EU-Global Public Administration
Full text linkPublic servants are at times portrayed as appeasing political masters while aiming for illegitimate political and personal interests (an example that was featured in the British comedy “Yes, Minister”). This misperception demonstrates the balancing act required by public administrations, especially if they truly seek to serve the public. Adding inter- national law, global governance and modernization to the melting pot of EU members renders matters particularly challenging. The paper explores the issues’ theoretical and practical perspectives.Debate begins by examining international law and globalization components of global governance relevant to domestic public administration, including global administra- tive law. This definitional stage is followed by theorizing on how developments affect EU members’ public administration. Moving from theory to practice, the paper next discusses influences of the new global governance, non-state actors on public adminis- tration structures, legal environments and interrelationships. We end the discussion by offering policy proposals, food for thought and proposals for future research directions. In the past, European public servants were subject only to local laws serving local con- stituencies. Today, the same public servants are an integral part of an EU-Global mod- ern public administration serving the globe. This development creates great uncertain- ties, but with proper policies it can be a true blessing for both public administration and the EU-Global publi
Steering self-organisation through confinement
No full textSelf-organisation is the spontaneous emergence of spatio-temporal structures and patterns from the interaction of smaller individual units. Examples are found across many scales in very different systems and scientific disciplines, from physics, materials science and robotics to biology, geophysics and astronomy. Recent research has highlighted how self-organisation can be both mediated and controlled by confinement. Confinement is an action over a system that limits its units’ translational and rotational degrees of freedom, thus also influencing the system's phase space probability density; it can function as either a catalyst or inhibitor of self-organisation. Confinement can then become a means to actively steer the emergence or suppression of collective phenomena in space and time. Here, to provide a common framework and perspective for future research, we examine the role of confinement in the self-organisation of soft-matter systems and identify overarching scientific challenges that need to be addressed to harness its full scientific and technological potential in soft matter and related fields. By drawing analogies with other disciplines, this framework will accelerate a common deeper understanding of self-organisation and trigger the development of innovative strategies to steer it using confinement, with impact on, e.g., the design of smarter materials, tissue engineering for biomedicine and in guiding active matter.</p
A Trade-Off Analysis Between Random Noise Attenuation and Muscle State Preservation: A Simulation Study on Stretch Reflex Responses
No full textThe surface electromyographic (sEMG) signals that originate from skeletal muscle electrical activity, are used clinically and experimentally to determine muscular behaviour, e.g. amplitude, area under the curve and onset of activity. Surface EMG signals are inevitably contaminated by noise and artefacts from the site between the skin and electrodes, non-target muscles and recording hardware. After recording, signal processing methods like filtering, are used in an attempt to determine the underlying active state of the muscle, portrayed by the motoneuron pool firing. As EMG is in fact a deformed representation of the actual muscle activity, processing is used to extract a more veracious description of the active muscle states. This study investigated the effects of random noise - which in practice resembles transducer noise -, and filtering on the simulation accuracy of short and long latency muscle stretch responses, extracted from simulated EMG signals. To obtain the deviation from the noiseless signals, a fiber potential model was developed to simulate the EMG surface potentials that used an existing motoneuron pool firing model by Schuurmans et al. 2009. The resulting EMGs were the muscle responses to stretch perturbations at different velocities and amplitudes combinations (1.5, 2, 3, 5 rad/s and 0.06, 0.10, 0.14 rad). Consecutively, the EMG signals were contaminated with different noise intensities (SNR: -1, 2, 5, 7, 9 dB) and then filtered with a \nth{3} order Butterworth low-pass filter, with cut-off frequencies between [1-200Hz]. Finally, the short- and long latency stretch responses areas were calculated and compared between the filtered noiseless and filtered noisy EMG signals, by calculating the difference between the values as a fraction of the value from the noiseless simulated signal. It was found that a signal-to-noise ratio of at least 5 dB with a 85Hz cut-off low-pass filter was necessary to keep the error below 10\% maintaining M1 and M2 characteristics. It was also seen that M1 was more affected than M2 under the same amount of contamination, suggesting different spectral frequency contents between the stretch responses, and different underlying neuronal firing behaviour. The described signal-to-noise ratio thresholds and proposed cut-off frequencies resulting in acceptable signal error, can be used as a reference on accuracy of latency response simulations. The error courses provide information about the way error and signal are attenuated or preserved. Besides, the differences in error course comparing the two latency responses provides an insight into the difference in behaviour between the underlying reflex mechanisms. Apart from the findings the combination of adapted and developed model can be used in future research where noise-free surface potentials are required, and can be further developed to produce veracious EMG signals
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