ICTY Letter from Richard Goldstone to M. Cherif Bassiouni

Letter from Richard Goldstone of the ICTY to M. Cherif Bassiouni regarding the Annexes and Syracuse meeting on 4-8 December 1994https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/documents_780/1036/thumbnail.jp

Experimental Validation of Contact Dynamics for In-Hand Manipulation

This paper evaluates state-of-the-art contact models at predicting the motions and forces involved in simple in-hand robotic manipulations. In particular it focuses on three primitive actions --linear sliding, pivoting, and rolling-- that involve contacts between a gripper, a rigid object, and their environment. The evaluation is done through thousands of controlled experiments designed to capture the motion of object and gripper, and all contact forces and torques at 250Hz. We demonstrate that a contact modeling approach based on Coulomb's friction law and maximum energy principle is effective at reasoning about interaction to first order, but limited for making accurate predictions. We attribute the major limitations to 1) the non-uniqueness of force resolution inherent to grasps with multiple hard contacts of complex geometries, 2) unmodeled dynamics due to contact compliance, and 3) unmodeled geometries dueto manufacturing defects.Comment: International Symposium on Experimental Robotics, ISER 2016, Tokyo, Japa

The influence of environmental and core temperature on cyclooxygenase and PGE2 in healthy humans.

Whether cyclooxygenase (COX)/prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) thermoregulatory pathways, observed in rodents, present in humans? Participants (n = 9) were exposed to three environments; cold (20 °C), thermoneutral (30 °C) and hot (40 °C) for 120 min. Core (Tc)/skin temperature and thermal perception were recorded every 15 min, with COX/PGE2 concentrations determined at baseline, 60 and 120 min. Linear mixed models identified differences between and within subjects/conditions. Random coefficient models determined relationships between Tc and COX/PGE2. Tc [mean (range)] increased in hot [+ 0.8 (0.4-1.2) °C; p < 0.0001; effect size (ES): 2.9], decreased in cold [- 0.5 (- 0.8 to - 0.2) °C; p < 0.0001; ES 2.6] and was unchanged in thermoneutral [+ 0.1 (- 0.2 to 0.4) °C; p = 0.3502]. A relationship between COX2/PGE2 in cold (p = 0.0012) and cold/thermoneutral [collapsed, condition and time (p = 0.0243)] was seen, with higher PGE2 associated with higher Tc. A within condition relationship between Tc/PGE2 was observed in thermoneutral (p = 0.0202) and cold/thermoneutral [collapsed, condition and time (p = 0.0079)] but not cold (p = 0.0631). The data suggests a thermogenic response of the COX/PGE2 pathway insufficient to defend Tc in cold. Further human in vivo research which manipulates COX/PGE2 bioavailability and participant acclimation/acclimatization are warranted to elucidate the influence of COX/PGE2 on Tc

Cliophysics: Socio-political Reliability Theory, Polity Duration and African Political (In)stabilities

Quantification of historical sociological processes have recently gained attention among theoreticians in the effort of providing a solid theoretical understanding of the behaviors and regularities present in sociopolitical dynamics. Here we present a reliability theory of polity processes with emphases on individual political dynamics of African countries. We found that the structural properties of polity failure rates successfully capture the risk of political vulnerability and instabilities in which 87.50%, 75%, 71.43%, and 0% of the countries with monotonically increasing, unimodal, U-shaped and monotonically decreasing polity failure rates, respectively, have high level of state fragility indices. The quasi-U-shape relationship between average polity duration and regime types corroborates historical precedents and explains the stability of the autocracies and democracies.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Second T = 3/2 state in 9^9B and the isobaric multiplet mass equation

Recent high-precision mass measurements and shell model calculations~[Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 108}, 212501 (2012)] have challenged a longstanding explanation for the requirement of a cubic isobaric multiplet mass equation for the lowest $A = 9$ isospin quartet. The conclusions relied upon the choice of the excitation energy for the second $T = 3/2$ state in $^9$B, which had two conflicting measurements prior to this work. We remeasured the energy of the state using the $^9{\rm Be}(^3{\rm He},t)$ reaction and significantly disagree with the most recent measurement. Our result supports the contention that continuum coupling in the most proton-rich member of the quartet is not the predominant reason for the large cubic term required for $A = 9$ nuclei

Development of a toolkit for a mentoring program

The mentoring kit for a mentoring program provides the mentors with the necessary resources and tools to help to mentees and teams to understand, apply and integrate their strengths in their respective roles. The tools of the kit offer a working model with the mentee to develop an effective strategy that improves his/her performance through development based on strengths. One of the most effective methods for managing and developing talent within students are mentoring programs. These programs provide a vehicle in which knowledge and wisdom is shared while creating an environment for learning and growth. Novice mentors could benefit from a toolkit to help structure effective mentoring programs. This article describes such a toolkit to provide mentors with the necessary resources and tools to help mentees and teams to understand, apply and integrate their strengths in their respective roles. The objectives of this toolkit are: 1. Deliver models and structures so that the mentee has the ability to: - Develop transformational, theoretical and experiential learning processes. - Develop, evaluate and optimize your resources to function with greater creativity, prominence, leadership and proactivity. 2. Stimulate the development of skills that provide innovative perspectives. 3. Learn to apply the tools and skills acquired in the educational field to: - Understand and diagnose situations in context. - Develop intervention plans with his/her mentor adjusted to the needs and expectations of themselves. - Generate spaces for the identification of barriers and conflicts in his/her processes. - Stimulate actions to overcome challenges or opportunities. – Effective accompaniment of the mentees to reach their goals. Additionally, the tools included in the kit offer a working model for the mentee to develop an effective strategy that improves his/her performance through development based on strengths. This article presents the importance of the use of mentoring tools, under the guidelines of the mentoring toolkit design. This article presents the importance of the use of mentoring tools, under the guidelines of the mentoring toolkit design. This paper reflects simple tools that can be used in a systematic way so that in the mentoring process the participant can perform the most difficult task of all, that of investigating themselves and at the same time the mentor can count on valuable data to be able to facilitate the work. Future research will focus on the evaluation of the toolkit