The Inter-American Human Rights System in the Context of Migration: US Immigration Policies

International human rights laws are critical to ensuring a minimum protection level for those migrating to other nations across the globe. Despite intense efforts by the United States to sidestep such policies while misrepresenting their repeated violations of human rights now taking place at the U.S.-Mexico border, these policies remain in full force in the global governance community. The actions of the Trump administration and others clearly indicate the need for political intervention to ensure such rights are maintained. Using qualitative content analysis and participatory observation, this article reviews the effectiveness of thematic hearings, under the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in advocating for the abolition of U.S. immigration policies that have resulted in grave human rights violations. Overall, this study finds that the Inter-American System is still today, a tool used by the United States government to police Latin American countries. Moreover, it finds that the two main factors preventing thematic hearings from being effective at producing policy change are: (1) A socio-cultural gap between both the Inter-American System and civil society organizations, and the migrant population in the region; and (2) The United States using the principle of sovereignty to implement unfair immigration policies and justify interventionist measures in Mexico and Central America

Neo-Atlantis: Dutch Responses to Five Meter Sea Level Rise

What would happen to the Netherlands if, in 2030, the sea level starts to rise and eventually, after 100 years, a sea level of five meters above current level would be reached? Two socio-economic scenarios are developed from a literature review and by interviews with researchers and practicionersin the domains of social sciences, economics, civil engineering, and land use planning. One scenario describes what would happen in a future characterised by a trend towards further globalisation, marketisation and high economic growth, while the other scenario happens in a future under opposite trends. Under both scenarios, the Southwest and Northwest of the Netherlands – already now below seal level - would be abandoned because of sea level rise. Although most experts believe that geomorphology and current engineering skills allow to largely maintain the territorial integrity of the Netherlands, there are some reasons to assume that this is not likely to happen. Social processes that precede important political decisions – such as the growth of the belief in the reality of SLR and the framing of such decision in a proper political context (policy window) – evolve slowly. Although a flood disaster would speed up decision-making, the general expectation is that decisions would come too late in view of the rate of SLR and the possible pace of construction of works.Extreme sea level rise, The Netherlands, flood defences

Discovery and Presentation of Evidence in Adversary and Nonadversary Proceedings

In order to evaluate fully the advantage claimed for the adversary model we sought to add a third element that would test the hypothesis under a variety of conditions. The degree to which the evidence discovered in a case favors one party at the expense of another appeared to meet this criterion. This fact-distribution element is a pervasive condition of legal conflict resolution that, intuition suggests, may significantly influence information search and transmission. Further, this variable could be easily and accurately controlled by regulating the flow of favorable information acquired by the subjects during the experiment. The remainder of this article reports a laboratory experiment intended to cast light on both the specific claim made on behalf of the adversary system and the nature of information processing in legal systems generally

Vertex Corrections on the Anomalous Hall Effect in Spin-polarized Two-dimensional Electron Gases with Rashba Spin-orbit Interaction

We study the effect of disorder on the intrinsic anomalous Hall (AH) conductivity in a spin-polarized two-dimensional electron gas with a Rashba-type spin-orbit interaction. We find that AH conductivity vanishes unless the lifetime is spin-dependent, similar to the spin Hall (SH) conductivity in the non-magnetic system. In addition, we find that the SH conductivity does not vanish in the presence of magnetic scatterers. We show that the SH conductivity can be controlled by changing the amount of the magnetic impurities.Comment: Tex file only, no figure

Construction Industry Training Fund Act, 1993, No. 17

This study examined ‘Theory of Mind’ (ToM) functioning, its association with psychometric schizotypy and with self-reported psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) and depressive symptoms, in a community sample of adolescents. Seventy-two adolescents (mean age 14.51 years) from Barcelona, Spain, completed questionnaires assessing PLEs, depressive symptoms, and schizotypy. A verbal ToM task and a vocabulary test were administered. The effect of symptomatology, vocabulary ability, age, and gender on task performance was explored. Neither total score on schizotypy nor PLEs were associated with ToM performance. A significant effect of vocabulary on adolescent's performance of both ToM and control stories was found. ToM showed significant negative associations with positive schizotypy, and with one cluster of positive PLEs: first-rank experiences. Positive significant associations between ToM and persecutory delusions and the impulsive aspects of schizotypy were found. Depressive symptoms did not affect ToM performance. Positive schizotypal traits and first-rank symptoms are associated with ToM deficits in adolescents. Results support the trait-(versus state-) dependent notion of ToM impairments in schizophrenia. ToM may be a developmental impairment associated with positive schizotypy and PLEs

Networks for Science-Informed Innovation in the Arctic: Insights on the Structure and Evolution of a Canadian Research Network

In remote peripheral regions like the Arctic, research networks have been identified as an important mechanism for nurturing science-informed innovation. Given that relatively little is known about the network structures that support Arctic innovation processes, we employ social network analysis techniques to examine the structural organization and evolution of ArcticNet, a large Canadian Arctic scientific research network over a 13-year period (2004 – 17). ArcticNet funded 152 multidisciplinary research teams, connecting multiple types of science-based innovation actors, not including students (301 organizations and 1659 individuals). The research network grew without reaching saturation (increasing size, decreasing density), suggesting that ArcticNet was successful in recruiting new actors over the 13-year period. ArcticNet was centralized around non-local, public-sector actors (mainly Canadian academics). The emergence of collaborations across several boundaries (sectoral, geographic, thematic) suggests that non-local Canadian academic actors played an important boundary-spanning role, particularly in the early stages of the network. Participation by local northern actors doubled from Phase 1 to Phase 4, and with time, local northern actors had an increasing propensity for carrying out boundary-spanning roles and addressing structural holes. This study presents new insights into the networked nature of Arctic scientific research with potential implications for future research and innovation policy.Dans les régions périphériques éloignées comme celle de l’Arctique, les réseaux de recherche constituent un mécanisme important pour encourager l’innovation fondée sur la science. Puisqu’on en sait relativement peu sur les structures de réseau qui soutiennent les processus d’innovation dans l’Arctique, nous recourons à des techniques d’analyse des réseaux sociaux pour examiner l’organisation structurelle et l’évolution d’ArcticNet, vaste réseau de recherche scientifique dans l’Arctique canadien, sur une période de 13 ans (2004–2017). ArcticNet a assuré le financement de 152 équipes de recherche multidisciplinaire, reliant par le fait même plusieurs types d’acteurs de l’innovation fondée sur la science, exception faite des étudiants (301 organisations et 1659 particuliers). Le réseau de recherche a pris de l’ampleur sans devenir saturé (augmentation de la taille, diminution de la densité), ce qui laisse entendre qu’ArcticNet a réussi à recruter de nouveaux acteurs pendant la période de 13 ans. Le réseau ArcticNet était centralisé autour d’acteurs non locaux relevant du secteur public (principalement des universitaires canadiens). L’émergence de collaborations englobant plusieurs facettes (sectorielle, géographique, thématique) suggère que les acteurs universitaires canadiens non locaux ont joué un rôle important en matière de chevauchement des diverses facettes, plus particulièrement durant les premiers stades du réseau. La participation d’acteurs du Nord a doublé de la phase 1 à la phase 4. Au fil du temps, les acteurs locaux du Nord ont eu une propension de plus en plus grande à assumer des rôles chevauchant diverses facettes et à combler les vides structurels. Cette étude présente de nouvelles perspectives de la nature réseautée de la recherche scientifique dans l’Arctique de même que les conséquences éventuelles sur les futures politiques en matière de recherche et d’innovation

Suppression of the Persistent Spin Hall Current by Defect Scattering

We study the linear response spin Hall conductivity of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in the presence of the Rashba spin orbit interaction in the diffusive transport regime. When defect scattering is modeled by isotropic short-range potential scatterers the spin Hall conductivity vanishes due to the vertex correction. A non-vanishing spin Hall effect may be recovered for dominantly forward defect scattering.Comment: Submitted to The Physical Review

EXPObench:Benchmarking Surrogate-based Optimisation Algorithms on Expensive Black-box Functions

Surrogate algorithms such as Bayesian optimisation are especially designed for black-box optimisation problems with expensive objectives, such as hyperparameter tuning or simulation-based optimisation. In the literature, these algorithms are usually evaluated with synthetic benchmarks which are well established but have no expensive objective, and only on one or two real-life applications which vary wildly between papers. There is a clear lack of standardisation when it comes to benchmarking surrogate algorithms on real-life, expensive, black-box objective functions. This makes it very difficult to draw conclusions on the effect of algorithmic contributions. A new benchmark library, EXPObench, provides first steps towards such a standardisation. The library is used to provide an extensive comparison of six different surrogate algorithms on four expensive optimisation problems from different real-life applications. This has led to new insights regarding the relative importance of exploration, the evaluation time of the objective, and the used model. A further contribution is that we make the algorithms and benchmark problem instances publicly available, contributing to more uniform analysis of surrogate algorithms. Most importantly, we include the performance of the six algorithms on all evaluated problem instances. This results in a unique new dataset that lowers the bar for researching new methods as the number of expensive evaluations required for comparison is significantly reduced

The Rashba Hamiltonian and electron transport

The Rashba Hamiltonian describes the splitting of the conduction band as a result of spin-orbit coupling in the presence of an external field and is commonly used to model the electronic structure of confined narrow-gap semiconductors. Due to the mixing of spin states some care has to be exercised in the calculation of transport properties. We derive the velocity operator for the Rashba-split conduction band and demonstrate that the transmission of an interface between a ferromagnet and a Rashba-split semiconductor does not depend on the magnetization direction, in contrast with previous assertions in the literature.Comment: one tex file, two figures; paper to appear in this form in PRB (RC