“Judicial Nationalism” in International Law: National Identity and Judicial Autonomy at the ICJ

To many, the International Court of Justice’s allowance for a State to have a co-national on the bench when the Court hears its case is an affront to “justice.” The unstated assumption—under which both the critics of the practice and the States who demand it operate—is that national judges will view co-nationals with greater sympathy than they do foreigners. Despite its intuitive appeal, it is troubling that States, critics and academics alike have accepted this assumption with little questioning. In fact, nothing on “judicial nationalism” in the ICJ has appeared in the academic literature since the 1960s. Given the ICJ’s growing profile and caseload, a new analysis is long overdue. Through an examination of the history of ICJ judicial votes since the Court’s inception through 2000, this paper demonstrates that the presumed “nationality” bias of ICJ judges was never as powerful as claimed by alarmists, and today seems to be breaking down further. For reasons related largely to the changing nature of nationality, linking nationality with expected judicial voting behavior is an over-simplified and blunt heuristic

An Examination of LMX: Accounting for Leadership Style, Performance, and Subordinate Gratitude

The current study used a controlled laboratory setting to examine how leadership style, gratitude (trait & state), and performance (high & low) affect how subordinates perceive Leader-Member-Exchange (LMX) quality, and additionally how these variables interact when predicting performance congruence. Participants were formed into groups led by a trained research assistant acting as the group leader. Following this, they were asked to work on a group task, complete a short writing assignment, and complete a sequence of surveys. Results found that both leadership style and trait gratitude were both significantly related to LMX ratings. However, state gratitude, performance, and all hypothesized interactions were found to be non-significant. Additional analyses suggest that LMX fully mediates the relationships between trait gratitude, leadership style, and performance congruence. Research conclusions and future directions are discussed

Consumer preferences for scanning modality to diagnose focal liver lesions

Objectives: Differences in the process of using liver imaging technologies might be important to patients. This study aimed to investigate preferences for scanning modalities used in diagnosing focal liver lesions. Methods: A discrete choice experiment was administered to 504 adults aged 25 years. Respondents made repeated choices between two hypothetical scans, described according to waiting time for scan and results, procedure type, the chance of minor side-effects, and whether further scanning procedures were likely to be required. Choice data were analyzed using mixed-logit models with respondent characteristics used to explain preference heterogeneity. Results: Respondents preferred shorter waiting times, the procedure to be undertaken with a handheld scanner on a couch instead of within a body scanner, no side-effects, and no follow–up scans (p .01). The average respondent was willing to wait an additional 2 weeks for the scan if it resulted in avoiding side-effects, 1.5 weeks to avoid further procedures or to be told the results immediately, and 1 week to have the scan performed on a couch with a handheld scanner. However, substantial heterogeneity was observed in the strength of preference for desirable imaging characteristics. Conclusions: An average individual belonging to a general population sub–group most likely to require imaging to characterize focal liver lesions in the United Kingdom would prefer contrast–enhanced ultrasound over magnetic resonance imaging or computed tomography. Insights into the patient perspective around differential characteristics of imaging modalities have the potential to be used to guide recommendations around the use of these technologies

Kinematic Foot Types in Youth with Equinovarus Secondary to Hemiplegia

Background Elevated kinematic variability of the foot and ankle segments exists during gait among individuals with equinovarus secondary to hemiplegic cerebral palsy (CP). Clinicians have previously addressed such variability by developing classification schemes to identify subgroups of individuals based on their kinematics. Objective To identify kinematic subgroups among youth with equinovarus secondary to CP using 3-dimensional multi-segment foot and ankle kinematics during locomotion as inputs for principal component analysis (PCA), and K-means cluster analysis. Methods In a single assessment session, multi-segment foot and ankle kinematics using the Milwaukee Foot Model (MFM) were collected in 24 children/adolescents with equinovarus and 20 typically developing children/adolescents. Results PCA was used as a data reduction technique on 40 variables. K-means cluster analysis was performed on the first six principal components (PCs) which accounted for 92% of the variance of the dataset. The PCs described the location and plane of involvement in the foot and ankle. Five distinct kinematic subgroups were identified using K-means clustering. Participants with equinovarus presented with variable involvement ranging from primary hindfoot or forefoot deviations to deformtiy that included both segments in multiple planes. Conclusion This study provides further evidence of the variability in foot characteristics associated with equinovarus secondary to hemiplegic CP. These findings would not have been detected using a single segment foot model. The identification of multiple kinematic subgroups with unique foot and ankle characteristics has the potential to improve treatment since similar patients within a subgroup are likely to benefit from the same intervention(s)

Was Adam Smith an individualist?

Smith is generally regarded as an individualist without qualification. This article argues that his predominantly individualist policy prescription is rooted in a more complex philosophy. He sees nature, including human nature, as a vast machine supervised by God and designed to maximize human happiness. Human weaknesses, as well as strengths, display the wisdom of God and play their part in this scheme. While Smith pays lip-service to justice, it is really social order that preoccupies him, and, within that, the defence of property. Individuals are valued as bearers of property. As persons, individuals are deceived by nature into acting in a socially beneficial way. In different ways Smith systematically denies the autonomy of the individual with respect to the whole of which he or she is part. For Smith, individual liberty is not the end, but the means, of sustaining social order and property

The evolution of the natural killer complex; a comparison between mammals using new high-quality genome assemblies and targeted annotation.

Natural killer (NK) cells are a diverse population of lymphocytes with a range of biological roles including essential immune functions. NK cell diversity is in part created by the differential expression of cell surface receptors which modulate activation and function, including multiple subfamilies of C-type lectin receptors encoded within the NK complex (NKC). Little is known about the gene content of the NKC beyond rodent and primate lineages, other than it appears to be extremely variable between mammalian groups. We compared the NKC structure between mammalian species using new high-quality draft genome assemblies for cattle and goat; re-annotated sheep, pig, and horse genome assemblies; and the published human, rat, and mouse lemur NKC. The major NKC genes are largely in the equivalent positions in all eight species, with significant independent expansions and deletions between species, allowing us to propose a model for NKC evolution during mammalian radiation. The ruminant species, cattle and goats, have independently evolved a second KLRC locus flanked by KLRA and KLRJ, and a novel KLRH-like gene has acquired an activating tail. This novel gene has duplicated several times within cattle, while other activating receptor genes have been selectively disrupted. Targeted genome enrichment in cattle identified varying levels of allelic polymorphism between the NKC genes concentrated in the predicted extracellular ligand-binding domains. This novel recombination and allelic polymorphism is consistent with NKC evolution under balancing selection, suggesting that this diversity influences individual immune responses and may impact on differential outcomes of pathogen infection and vaccination

Coagulation and fragmentation processes with evolving size and shape profiles : a semigroup approach

We investigate a class of bivariate coagulation-fragmentation equations. These equations describe the evolution of a system of particles that are characterised not only by a discrete size variable but also by a shape variable which can be either discrete or continuous. Existence and uniqueness of strong solutions to the associated abstract Cauchy problems are established by using the theory of substochastic semigroups of operators