The right to freedom of religion or belief and its intersection with other rights

This paper was commissioned by ILGA-Europe, to examine how the right to freedom of religion or belief intersects with other human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and to be protected from discrimination and hate speech. The paper examines in particular the tension between religious freedom and the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people, which is a matter of controversy in both legal and political discourse in Europe and elsewhere. In particular, some Christian organisations and commentators have portrayed anti-discrimination law as conflicting directly with the right to freedom of religion or belief. Such arguments are increasingly couched in terms of the asserted ‘right’ of religious individuals conscientiously to opt out of providing goods or services to same-sex couples or to express views that might be considered by others to be homophobic or transphobic. This discourse has gone so far as to characterise the scope and application of equality law as a form of religious persecution. The aim of this paper is to assist ILGA-Europe and other interested parties to respond to such arguments in a manner which is consistent with the standards and principles enshrined in both human rights and equality law, as articulated in the European Convention on Human Rights, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and relevant United Nations treaties and declarations, and authoritative interpretations of these instruments by the relevant courts and treaty bodies

Migrating eastern North Pacific gray whale call and blow rates estimated from acoustic recordings, infrared camera video, and visual sightings.

During the eastern North Pacific gray whale 2014-2015 southbound migration, acoustic call recordings, infrared blow detections, and visual sightings were combined to estimate cue rates, needed to convert detections into abundance. The gray whale acoustic call rate ranged from 2.3-24 calls/whale/day during the peak of the southbound migration with an average of 7.5 calls/whale/day over both the southbound and northbound migrations. The average daily calling rate increased between 30 December-13 February. With a call rate model, we estimated that 4,340 gray whales migrated south before visual observations began on 30 December, which is 2,829 more gray whales than used in the visual estimate, and would add approximately 10% to the abundance estimate. We suggest that visual observers increase their survey effort to all of December to document gray whale presence. The infrared camera blow rate averaged 49 blows/whale/hour over 5-8 January. Probability of detection of a whale blow by the infrared camera was the same at night as during the day. However, probability of detection decreased beyond 2.1 km offshore, whereas visual sightings revealed consistent whale densities up to 3 km offshore. We suggest that future infrared camera surveys use multiple cameras optimised for different ranges offshore

Role of national parliaments

Presentation to the Conference on the long-term future of the European Court of Human Rights, organised by PluriCourts and the Council of Europe in Oslo, 7-8 April 2014. The presentation discusses the role of parliaments in the implementation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights

Hospital food service: a comparative analysis of systems and introducing the ‘Steamplicity’ concept

Background Patient meals are an integral part of treatment hence the provision and consumption of a balanced diet, essential to aid recovery. A number of food service systems are used to provide meals and the Steamplicity concept has recently been introduced. This seeks, through the application of a static, extended choice menu, revised patient ordering procedures, new cooking processes and individual patient food heated/cooked at ward level, to address some of the current hospital food service concerns. The aim of this small-scale study, therefore, was to compare a cook-chill food service operation against Steamplicity. Specifically, the goals were to measure food intake and wastage at ward level; ‘stakeholders’ (i.e. patients, staff, etc.) satisfaction with both systems; and patients’ acceptability of the food provided. Method The study used both quantitative (self-completed patient questionnaires, n = 52) and qualitative methods (semi-structured interviews, n = 16) with appropriate stakeholders including medical and food service staff, patients and their visitors. Results Patients preferred the Steamplicity system overall and in particular in terms of food choice, ordering, delivery and food quality. Wastage was considerably less with the Steamplicity system, although care must be taken to ensure that poor operating procedures do not negate this advantage. When the total weight of food consumed in the ward at each meal is divided by the number of main courses served, at lunch, the mean intake with the cook-chill system was 202 g whilst that for the Steamplicity system was 282 g and for the evening meal, 226 g compared with 310 g. Conclusions The results of this small study suggest that Steamplicity is more acceptable to patients and encourages the consumption of larger portions. Further evaluation of the Steamplicity system is warranted. The purpose of this study was to directly compare selected aspects (food wastage at ward level; satisfaction with systems and food provided) of a traditional cook-chill food service operation against ‘Steamplicity’. Results indicate that patients preferred the ‘Steamplicty’ system in all areas: food choice, ordering, delivery, food quality and overall. Wastage was considerably less with the ‘Steamplicity’ system; although care must be taken to ensure that poor operating procedures do not negate this advantage. When the total weight of food consumed in the ward at each meal is divided by the number of main courses served, results show that at lunch, mean intake with the cook-chill system was 202g whilst that for the ‘Steamplicity’ system was 282g and for the evening meal, 226g compared with 310g

Data protection in relation to transborder information sharing for network security and criminal justice purposes

Between November 2012 and September 2013, Joseph A. Cannataci responded to a brief commissioned by the Directorate General of Human Rights and Rule of Law of the Council of Europe. The initial work carried out to end December 2012 was subsequently revised and up-dated over the period Jan-Sep 2013 to reflect the impact of the developments over the European Commission’s Data Protection Reform Package (DPRP) and increasingly that of the revelations of the US whistle-blower Edward Snowden. The concept paper finds that the urgency for and the onus upon the CoE to take immediate action to produce a new binding instrument is compounded by the Snowden revelations and the possible chronic inadequacy of EU responses in the sphere of national security on account of exclusions of competence by Art 4 Section 2 of the EU Treaty.peer-reviewe

Perceptions of Electoral Fairness and Voter Turnout

Previous research has established a link between turnout and the extent to which voters are faced with a “meaningful” partisan choice in elections; this study extends the logic of this argument to perceptions of the “meaningfulness” of electoral conduct. It hypothesizes that perceptions of electoral integrity are positively related to turnout. The empirical analysis to test this hypothesis is based on aggregate-level data from 31 countries, combined with survey results from Module 1 of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems survey project, which includes new and established democracies. Multilevel modeling is employed to control for a variety of individual- and election-level variables that have been found in previous research to influence turnout. The results of the analysis show that perceptions of electoral integrity are indeed positively associated with propensity to vote. </jats:p

Review of the accreditation practices at the University of Malta with focus on the institute of agriculture

This paper gives a detailed review of the internal academic audit of the existing courses offer by the Institute of Agriculture of the University of Malta. A description of a new joint degree between the universities of Malta and Perugia in Mediterranean Agro-ecosystems Management is also included. Under the Maltese context, a single accreditation authority is not considered advisable.peer-reviewe

Research activities in the first two cycles of biosystems engineering university studies in Malta

The University of Malta is harmonising all programme offer to be compliant with the Bologna process which envisages the establishment of the European Higher Education Area by 2010. Research activities at the University of Malta date back to the seventies and were mainly carried out by the Department of Physiology and Biochemistry of the Faculty of Medicine. Following accession within the European Union, significant investment has been committed to structure and support research, in particularly in areas that provide value-added to the country's economy. Consequently; thematic, project-based funding prevails over bottom-up, openended research programmes and measures, giving priority to academia-industry collaboration.peer-reviewe

ValiDichro: a website for validating and quality control of protein circular dichroism spectra

Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy is widely used in structural biology as a technique for examining the structure, folding and conformational changes of proteins. A new server, ValiDichro, has been developed for checking the quality and validity of CD spectral data and metadata, both as an aid to data collection and processing and as a validation procedure for spectra to be included in publications. ValiDichro currently includes 25 tests for data completeness, consistency and quality. For each test that is done, not only is a validation report produced, but the user is also provided with suggestions for correcting or improving the data. The ValiDichro server is freely available at http://valispec.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/circularDichroism/ValiDichro/upload.html