594 research outputs found

    The ethics and politics of deportation in Europe

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    Defence date: 19 February 2019Examining Board: Professor Rainer Bauböck, European University Institute (Supervisor); Professor Matthew Gibney, University of Oxford; Professor Iseult Honohan, University College Dublin; Professor Jennifer Welsh, McGill University (formerly European University Institute)This thesis explores key empirical and normative questions prompted by deportation policies and practices in the contemporary European context. The core empirical research question the thesis seeks to address is: what explains the shape of deportation regimes in European liberal democracies? The core normative research question is: how should we evaluate these deportation regimes morally? The two parts of the thesis address each of these questions in turn. To explain contemporary European deportation regimes, the four chapters of the first part of the thesis investigate them from a historical and multilevel perspective. (“Expulsion Old and New”) starts by comparing contemporary deportation practices to earlier forms of forced removal such as criminal banishment, political exile, poor law expulsion, and collective expulsions on a religious or ethnic basis, highlighting how contemporary deportation echoes some of the purposes of these earlier forms of expulsion. (“Divergences in Deportation”) looks at some major differences between European countries in how, and how much, deportation is used as a policy instrument today, concluding that they can be roughly grouped into four regime types, namely lenient, selective, symbolically strict and coercively strict. The next two chapters investigate how non-national levels of government are involved in shaping deportation in the European context. (“Europeanising Expulsion”) traces how the institutions of the European Union have come to both restrain and facilitate or incentivise member states’ deportation practices in fundamental ways. (“Localities of Belonging”) describes how provincial and municipal governments are increasingly assertive in frustrating deportations, effectively shielding individuals or entire categories of people from the reach of national deportation efforts, while in other cases local governments pressure the national level into instigating deportation proceedings against unwanted residents. The chapters argue that such efforts on both the supranational and local levels must be explained with reference to supranational and local conceptions of membership that are part of a multilevel citizenship structure yet can, and often do, come apart from the national conception of belonging. The second part of the thesis addresses the second research question by discussing the normative issues deportation gives rise to. (“Deportability, Domicile and the Human Right to Stay”) argues that a moral and legal status of non-deportability should be extended beyond citizenship to all those who have established effective domicile, or long-term and permanent residence, in the national territory. (“Deportation without Domination?”) argues that deportation can and should be applied in a way that does not dominate those it subjects by ensuring its non-arbitrary application through a limiting of executive discretion and by establishing proportionality testing in deportation procedures. (“Resisting Unjust Deportation”) investigates what can and should be done in the face of unjust national deportation regimes, proposing that a normative framework for morally justified antideportation resistance must start by differentiating between the various individual and institutional agents of resistance before specifying how their right or duty to resist a particular deportation depends on motivational, epistemic and relational conditions

    Λ Baryon Production in νμ Interactions in the MicroBooNE Detector

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    The Cabibbo suppressed production of Λ baryons in anti-neutrino interactions with nuclei is a rare process that is yet to be measured with a modern neutrino detector with automated reconstruction. The cross section for this process is sensitive to a number of unique nuclear effects, most notably the secondary interactions of the produced hyperon while attempting to escape from the nucleus. Other interactions within the nuclear remnant can impact the estimation of neutrino energy in oscillation measurements, and thus an accurate description of the nuclear environment is required. The strangeness violating hyperon production process is only available to anti-neutrinos. The model of this interaction is implemented into the NuWro neutrino interaction Monte Carlo simulation, and some predictions are presented, focusing on the role of nuclear effects. This model introduces a hyperon-nucleus potential, which calculations from hypernuclear theory permit to be strongly repulsive in the case of Σ baryons. The presence of this potential is found to sculpt the shape of the differential cross section in some variables. The MicroBooNE detector will be described, followed by a description of a measurement of the flux averaged, restricted phase space cross section of Cabibbo suppressed Λ baryon production. A sophisticated event selection is employed, as a very large quantity of background neutrino interactions must be removed to perform the measurement with any sensitivity. This selection introduces some novel techniques such as the island finding method, and achieves a background reduction of ~106, with an efficiency of around 7%. The calculation of the systematic uncertainties will be explained, including two procedures explored to handle sources of background with extremely poor simulation statistics: an in- situ constraint using data from sidebands, and a visual inspection of the data and simulation to remove the troublesome background events. The sensitivity to the Λ baryon production cross section is calculated in the form of Bayesian posterior probability distributions, combining the systematic uncertainties with data and simulation statistical uncertainties. As a rare process, the statistical uncertainties are highly non-Gaussian, and the Bayesian approach is applied to include the full shapes of these uncertainties. Data corresponding to 2.2 × 1020 protons on target of neutrino mode running and 4.9 × 1020 protons on target of anti-neutrino running is analysed. When the data was unblinded, five Λ production candidates were selected from the data, consistent with the MC simulation prediction of 5.3 ± 1.1 events. The final estimated cross section is 1.8+2.0-1.6 × 10−40 cm2/Ar when employing the sideband constraint procedure. A similar result of 2.0+2.2-1.8 × 10−40 cm2/Ar is obtained when performing the visual scan instead. The methods used in this analysis are intended to be easily exported to other LArTPC detectors such as the Short Baseline Near Detector

    Complete Handbook

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    Cognitive and Autonomous Software-Defined Open Optical Networks

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    L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

    Teacher professional learning in the Republic of Ireland policy development to policy enactment

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    This book presents critical perspectives on the professional learning and professional development of educators as interpreted in 14 countries across Europe. Bringing together the comments of European education experts, the book fulfils a need for a better understanding of the changing nature of teacher professional learning in national policy contexts and of the cultural differences existing between various systems. It discusses the new thinking that has emerged in the field of teacher education alongside new models that reflect the changing patterns and policies relating to the ways educational professionals maintain and enhance professional practice. The book highlights that new models of teacher leadership and practitioner inquiry have a strong focus on pedagogy and social justice but are not in place in all countries. It also examines briefly the challenges brought about by the COVID pandemic and the ways in which new approaches to professional learning, specifically the use of new technologies, have begun to transform practice in some countries in Europe. The book gives insights into the ways in which professional learning policy is interpreted and applied in practice. It will be highly relevant for researchers and post-graduate students in the fields of teacher professional learning and development, school leadership, comparative education, and educational policy and planning

    Challenges in developing and implementing of 18F-FMISO synthesis with cartridge purification

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    [18F]fluoromisonidazole ([18F]FMISO) as nitroimidazole derivative with 18F radioisotope is widely known and studied radiopharmaceutical for PET evaluation of imaging hypoxia. In recent years, there is increasing number of articles describing the modified syntheses with different synthesis modules and purification procedures of [18F]FMISO. The goal of this work was to take a view of solid phase extraction (SPE) method challenges in developing of [18F]FMISO synthesis process with Synthera module. We synthesized [18F]FMISO under various reaction conditions and different purification cartridges with Synthera synthesizer. The synthesis was performed by nucleophilic substitution of 1-(2'-nitro-1'-imidazolyl)-2-O�tetrahydropyranyl-3-O-toluenesulfonylpropanediol precursor and subsequent acidic hydrolysis. A product mixture after was sent to waste over the Sep-Pak cartridges, whereby the final product was eluted from the cartridge with small amounts of ethanol in water. SCX, Alumina and six different RP extraction cartridge (HLB light, HLB plus LP, C18, tC18, C18 environmental, PS-RP) were used for SPE purification. Product samples, cartridges elution samples and waste samples were observed for chemical by-products and radiochemical purity with HPLC and TLC analysis. In this study, we successfully synthesized final product with reasonable radiochemical yield and high chemical and radiochemical purity of [18F]FMISO. The product meets all the requirements of the Ph. Eur. Monograp

    AI and legal personhood: a theoretical survey

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    I set out the pros and cons of conferring legal personhood on artificial intelligence systems (AIs), mainly under civil law. I provide functionalist arguments to justify this policy choice and identify the content that such a legal status might have. Although personhood entails holding one or more legal positions, I will focus on the distribution of liabilities arising from unpredictably illegal and harmful conduct. Conferring personhood on AIs might efficiently allocate risks and social costs, ensuring protection for victims, incentives for production, and technological innovation. I also consider other legal positions, e.g., the capacity to act, the ability to hold property, make contracts, and sue (and be sued). However, I contend that even assuming that conferring personhood on AIs finds widespread consensus, its implementation requires solving a coordination problem, determined by three asymmetries: technological, intra-legal systems, and inter-legal systems. I address the coordination problem through conceptual analysis and metaphysical explanation. I first frame legal personhood as a node of inferential links between factual preconditions and legal effects. Yet, this inferentialist reading does not account for the ‘background reasons’, i.e., it does not explain why we group divergent situations under legal personality and how extra-legal information is integrated into it. One way to account for this background is to adopt a neo-institutional perspective and update its ontology of legal concepts with further layers: the meta-institutional and the intermediate. Under this reading, the semantic referent of legal concepts is institutional reality. So, I use notions of analytical metaphysics, such as grounding and anchoring, to explain the origins and constituent elements of legal personality as an institutional kind. Finally, I show that the integration of conceptual and metaphysical analysis can provide the toolkit for finding an equilibrium around the legal-policy choices that are involved in including (or not including) AIs among legal persons

    Computer Aided Verification

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    This open access two-volume set LNCS 13371 and 13372 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 34rd International Conference on Computer Aided Verification, CAV 2022, which was held in Haifa, Israel, in August 2022. The 40 full papers presented together with 9 tool papers and 2 case studies were carefully reviewed and selected from 209 submissions. The papers were organized in the following topical sections: Part I: Invited papers; formal methods for probabilistic programs; formal methods for neural networks; software Verification and model checking; hyperproperties and security; formal methods for hardware, cyber-physical, and hybrid systems. Part II: Probabilistic techniques; automata and logic; deductive verification and decision procedures; machine learning; synthesis and concurrency. This is an open access book
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