Treaty Override: The False Conflict Between Whitney and Cook

This Article explores the conditions under which a U.S. statute over¬rides an earlier self-executing treaty. Focusing on the often blurred distinction between three types of statute-treaty relationships—reconcilable inconsistencies, textual repugnancies, and conflicts—the Article concludes that, contrary to a common view, there is no contra¬diction between the 1888 Supreme Court decision in Whitney v. Rob¬ertson, stating that in the event of a conflict between a statute and a treaty the later-in-time provision always controls, and the Court’s 1933 decision in Cook v. United States, holding that a later-in-time statute does not override an earlier treaty without a clear expression of con¬gressional intent to override. The Article explains that Cook merely finds no conflict to which Whitney’s later-in-time rule might apply: Together, the two decisions harmoniously stand for the proposition that while typically a later-in-time treaty overrides an earlier repug¬nant statute, a later-in-time statute overrides an earlier repugnant treaty only if Congress has clearly expressed its intent to override or if not overriding the treaty would render the statute a nullity. Though the Court did not say as much, Cook’s approach is an application of the canon of construction favoring a specific provision over a general one. Reconceptualized this way, Cook cannot be said to give general pri¬macy to treaties over statutes

Dynamic Localizations in Structural Steel at High Strain Rates and Temperatures – COMPLAS XI

The proposed paper presents a numerical study on the formation of shear bands at localized regions in two ferrite steel alloys, HSLA-65 and DH-36, subjected to certain range of velocity impact. Constitutive relations developed by the author [1] for ferritic steels is utilized in simulating the thermal and athermal parts of the flow stress over a wide range of temperatures and strain rates. The proposed plasticity model is implemented into the commercially well-known finite element software ABAQUS through VUMAT user subroutine. This implementation enables studying the shear band formation over a wide range of initial temperatures and strain rates in a cylindrical hat-shaped specimen with certain dimensions where the location of shear localization preceding shear band formation is forced to be between the hat and the brim. Sensitivity analysis is performed on different mesh configurations in order to select the optimum mesh. Another sensitivity analysis is also performed on the constitutive plasticity model material parameters to study their effect on the shear bands formation. Several conclusions related to the width of the shear bands considering the velocity load and initial temperatures will be discussed throughout this work

Ritualized Submission and the Reduction of Aggression in an Invertebrate

SummaryRitualized behaviors that signify acceptance of a dominance relationship and reduce aggression between rivals are a common feature of vertebrate social behavior [1, 2]. Although some invertebrates, including crayfish [3], lobsters [4], and ants [5], display dominance postures, more complex dominance rituals and their effects on fitness have not been reported. We found that crayfish display such a complex ritual, when two males engaged in pseudocopulatory behavior to signify their dominance relationship. This was followed by a reduction in aggression and an increased likelihood of the subordinate's survival. Pseudocopulation was initiated by the eventual dominant and could be accepted or refused by the eventual subordinate. The frequency of aggressive behavior declined significantly during the first hour in all pairs that pseudocopulated but remained high in pairs that did not. Whereas all the subordinate members of pairs that pseudocopulated survived the initial 24 hr of pairing, half of subordinates that did not pseudocopulate were killed during that time. This differential mortality indicates that the reduction of aggression induced by the pseudocopulatory ritual directly enhances the differential survival of male crayfish that engage in this behavior

Voltage and Deflection Amplification via Double Resonance Excitation in a Cantilever Microstructure

Cantilever electrostatically-actuated resonators show great promise in sensing and actuating applications. However, the electrostatic actuation suffers from high-voltage actuation requirements and high noise low-amplitude signal-outputs which limit its applications. Here, we introduce a mixed-frequency signal for a cantilever-based resonator that triggers its mechanical and electrical resonances simultaneously, to overcome these limitations. A single linear RLC circuit cannot completely capture the response of the resonator under double resonance excitation. Therefore, we develop a coupled mechanical and electrical mathematical linearized model at different operation frequencies and validate this model experimentally. The double-resonance excitation results in a 21 times amplification of the voltage across the resonator and 31 times amplitude amplification over classical excitation schemes. This intensive experimental study showed a great potential of double resonance excitation providing a high amplitude amplification and maintaining the linearity of the system when the parasitic capacitance is maintained low

The Need for a Legal Standard of Care in the AI Environment

Artificial intelligence (AI) has risen to legal debate over legal liability in-volved in an incident. An intelligent machine can learn through experience and adapts its decisions accordingly. As such, if an intelligent machine’s be-haviour causes harm, the developer and the machine's owner may argue that the autonomous nature of AI systems has broken the causal link. The diffi-culty of determining who is liable for a harmful behaviour of an AI system is accentuated by the fact that tracing back the decision-making process of an AI system is not always possible. This paper aims to put forward a definition of a duty of care for developers and users of AI systems that could be the basis for the investigation of liability while seeking predictability of the allo-cation of legal liability in many cases involving AI incidents. The paper ex-amines some guidelines on ethics for AI to discern essential elements of the duty of care in the AI environment. The paper argues that a uniform minimum standard of care should be adopted internationally through model laws or even an international convention. A uniform standard of care should be enforced by State control rather than self-regulation by the AI industry. A licensing or certification requirement for AI products should be implemented to verify that the elements of the duty of care have been satisfied to control AI production and import/export relations. Violation of the standard of care can be an objective ground to negate or allocate negligence, especially when verifying errors in the design of the relevant software or if explaining the AI system's behaviour is not possible. A clear standard of care would, this paper assumes, help promote AI development and use and would not create imped-iments to investment in AI production

Patterns of Neural Circuit Activation and Behavior during Dominance Hierarchy Formation in Freely Behaving Crayfish

Creation of a dominance hierarchy within a population of animals typically involves a period of agonistic activity in which winning and losing decide relative positions in the hierarchy. Among crayfish, fighting between size-matched animals leads to an abrupt change of behavior as the new subordinate retreats and escapes from the attacks and approaches of the dominant (Issa et al., 1999). We used high-speed videography and electrical recordings of aquarium field potentials to monitor the release of aggressive and defensive behavior, including the activation of neural circuits for four different tail-flip behaviors. We found that the sequence of tail-flip circuit excitation traced the development of their dominance hierarchy. Offensive tail flipping, attacks, and approaches by both animals were followed by a sharp rise in the frequency of nongiant and medial giant escape tail flips and a fall in the frequency of offensive tail flips of the new subordinate. These changes suggest that sudden, coordinated changes in the excitability of a set of neural circuits in one animal produce the changes in behavior that mark its transition to subordinate status

The Forgotten Comrades: Leftist Women, Palestinians, and the Jordanian Communist Party, 1936–1957

The Middle East in the 1950s was the site of major contestation for popular support and power. In Jordan, a militant anti-imperialist movement emerged with a platform centered around expelling British forces and abrogating the Anglo-Jordanian treaty. In the struggle between monarchism and republicanism, the Jordanian Communist Party and Ba’ath Party were the catalyzing anti-imperial forces in the first decade of Jordan’s nominal independence. Despite having a militant core of feminists within their ranks, women of the Jordanian Communist Party—who were instrumental in politicizing and radicalizing the first phase of the Jordanian Women’s Movement—have been systematically erased from this critical episode in Jordan’s history. Thus, this thesis reconstructs the symbiotic relationship between the Jordanian Women’s Movement and the Jordanian Communist Party during the apex of the anti-imperial struggle against British hegemony in Jordan, shedding new light on the social and political activism of leftist women during this period