A Human Rights Agenda For The Next Administration

I would like to thank the American branch of the International Law Association for inviting me here today. It\u27s a pleasure to join such a distinguished group of business people, scholars, and community leaders

An Introduction to Corporate Social Responsibility in the Extractive Industries

Many congratulations to the Board and staff of the Yale Human Rights & Development Law Journal for hosting this timely and important Symposium on Corporate Social Responsibility in the Extractive Industries, and for devoting this volume of the Journal to an in-depth analysis of the key issues addressed in the Symposium. This Preface is designed to paint a broad Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) backdrop for this special volume and to provide a context for the more detailed articles that follow. To that end, it defines the concept of CSR, particularly as it relates to the extractive industries, and identifies the primary business drivers behind it. In addition, this introduction highlights some of the key CSR issues facing the extractive industries today and in the coming years, and previews how the succeeding articles may help to resolve them

Journeys of adjustment: the experiences of adolescents living with juvenile idiopathic arthritis

Background: Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is one of the most common diseases of childhood causing pain, swelling of joints and reduced mobility. Previous research has focused on the challenges and psychosocial impact of JIA, but there has been limited attention given to how young people adjust and adapt to living with a long-term condition such as JIA. The aim of this qualitative study was therefore to explore adolescents' experiences of living with JIA, with particular focus on the process of adjustment. Methods: Ten adolescents (7 female, 3 male) aged 13–17 years with good treatment adherence were recruited from an adolescent arthritis clinic. In-depth interviews were conducted, and data were analysed by two researchers independently using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results: These adolescents described the physical and psychosocial ‘burden of living with JIA’ and the challenges faced by an underlying preoccupation ‘to be a normal teenager’. However, their accounts also revealed ways in which they regained agency and developed ‘resilience through taking control’ over their lives. This resilience helped the adolescents re-establish a sense of well-being through an ongoing process of ‘acceptance and self-growth’. Conclusions: Although much research has adopted a deficit model that focuses on adjustment problems, the current study highlights the resourcefulness of young people in managing the challenges of living with a long-term condition. These experiences of successful adjustment can be used as the basis of positive, strength-based intervention approaches for adolescents with arthritis to enhance resilience and well-being

Vitamin C for treating atrial fibrillation : [Protocol]

This document contains the Protocol for a Cochrane review. A review was prepared, but it was not published. We found strong evidence that vitamin C has prevented atrial fibrillation outside of the USA. The Cochrane review manuscript is available at: http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/hemila/H/HH_2015_CochAF_Protocol.pdf. The review was not rejected because of valid scientific reasons, see responses to reviewer comments at: http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/hemila/H/VitC_AF_1308_reviewer_comments.pdf. The Cochrane editors rejection statement is shown below. However, there is no description why the topic has low priority. Thus, was the low priority caused by effects seen only outside of the USA or because vitamin C is not interesting in the view of the Cochrane editors. A shortened version was published in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12872-017-0478-5 ## Reason for withdrawal from publication: The CRG withdrew this protocol as the current author team is unable to progress to the final stage of the review. The editors consider this title as low priority for the current portfolio of the Heart Group and therefore this title is not open to a new author team. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD011471.pub2/abstractPeer reviewe

Gaia Data Release 2: Calibration and mitigation of electronic offset effects in the data

The European Space Agency Gaia satellite was launched into orbit around L2 in December 2013. This ambitious mission has strict requirements on residual systematic errors resulting from instrumental corrections in order to meet a design goal of sub-10 microarcsecond astrometry. During the design and build phase of the science instruments, various critical calibrations were studied in detail to ensure that this goal could be met in orbit. In particular, it was determined that the video-chain offsets on the analogue side of the analogue-to-digital conversion electronics exhibited instabilities that could not be mitigated fully by modifications to the flight hardware. We provide a detailed description of the behaviour of the electronic offset levels on microsecond timescales, identifying various systematic effects that are known collectively as offset non-uniformities. The effects manifest themselves as transient perturbations on the gross zero-point electronic offset level that is routinely monitored as part of the overall calibration process. Using in-orbit special calibration sequences along with simple parametric models, we show how the effects can be calibrated, and how these calibrations are applied to the science data. While the calibration part of the process is relatively straightforward, the application of the calibrations during science data processing requires a detailed on-ground reconstruction of the readout timing of each charge-coupled device (CCD) sample on each device in order to predict correctly the highly time-dependent nature of the corrections. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our offset non-uniformity models in mitigating the effects in Gaia data. We demonstrate for all CCDs and operating instrument and modes on board Gaia that the video-chain noise-limited performance is recovered in the vast majority of science samples

Vitamin C for treating atrial fibrillation : [Withdrawal from publication]

The Cochrane editors statement is shown below.However, there is no description why the topic has low priority. We found strong evidence that in RCTs published so far, vitamin C has prevented atrial fibrillation outside of the USA. Thus, was the low priority caused by effects seen only outside of the USA or because vitamin C is not interesting in the view of the Cochrane editors. The manuscript for the Cochrane review is available at: http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/hemila/H/HH_2015_CochAF_Protocol.pdf. The review was not rejected because of valid scientific reasons, see responses to reviewer comments at: http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/hemila/H/VitC_AF_1308_reviewer_comments.pdf. A shortened version was published in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12872-017-0478-5. ## Reason for withdrawal from publication: The CRG withdrew this protocol as the current author team is unable to progress to the final stage of the review. The editors consider this title as low priority for the current portfolio of the Heart Group and therefore this title is not open to a new author team.Peer reviewe

Analytic philosophy for biomedical research: the imperative of applying yesterday's timeless messages to today's impasses

The mantra that "the best way to predict the future is to invent it" (attributed to the computer scientist Alan Kay) exemplifies some of the expectations from the technical and innovative sides of biomedical research at present. However, for technical advancements to make real impacts both on patient health and genuine scientific understanding, quite a number of lingering challenges facing the entire spectrum from protein biology all the way to randomized controlled trials should start to be overcome. The proposal in this chapter is that philosophy is essential in this process. By reviewing select examples from the history of science and philosophy, disciplines which were indistinguishable until the mid-nineteenth century, I argue that progress toward the many impasses in biomedicine can be achieved by emphasizing theoretical work (in the true sense of the word 'theory') as a vital foundation for experimental biology. Furthermore, a philosophical biology program that could provide a framework for theoretical investigations is outlined

Liquid networks and the metaphysics of flux: ontologies of flow in an age of speed and mobility

It is common for social theorists to utilize the metaphors of ‘flow’, ‘fluidity’, and ‘liquidity’ in order to substantiate the ways in which speed and mobility form the basis for a new kind of information or network society. Yet rarely have these concepts been sufficiently theorized in order to establish their relevance or appropriateness. This article contends that the notion of flow as utilized in social theory is profoundly metaphysical in nature, and needs to be judged as such. Beginning with a discussion of the accelerating timescape that characterizes the network society, it will then move on to examine three main issues with this ‘metaphysics of flux’. First, that the concept of flows unjustly privileges the process of becoming and, as a result, is unable to account for the materiality, substantiality, and agency of the objects being mobilized, and the contingency of their mediation. Second, that it posits the accelerating tendencies of capital as an ontological inevitability, thus discounting resistance to such forces. Finally, that it ignores the human faculty for reason and speculative thought in developing alternative means of political praxis. The solution, it will be argued, is not to abandon metaphysical accounts of the network society, but rather to challenge those accounts that, in exhibiting a crude empiricism, work to justify the status quo

The philosophical foundations of humanistic psychology: A reply to McMullen

McMullen (1982) attempted in his critique of humanistic psychology to attack its philosophical foundations, taking these to be phenomenology and a doctrine of self determination. In this paper we argue that McMullen has misrepresented the philosophical position of the humanists, then we examine McMullen's own philosophical assumptions. We show that he has assumed the philosophy of empirical realism which we argue is inadequate as a foundation for science. It is shown that it is the inadequacy of McMullen's assumptions which underlies his failure to comprehend the position of the humanists. We then present a version of theoretical realism and show how, in terms of this, a conception of being can be justified which allows for the emergence of hierarchical order. On the basis of this conception of being we reassess the nature of self-determination and motivation, showing how, in opposition to both the empirical realism of McMullen and the philosophical dualism of conventional humanistic psychology, a naturalistic form of humanistic psychology is justified