Proportionality under International Humanitarian Law: The Reasonable Military Commander Standard and Reverberating Effects

The principle of proportionality protects civilians and civilian objects against expected incidental harm from an attack that is excessive to the military advantage anticipated from the attack. However, despite its status as a fundamental norm of international humanitarian law (IHL), key terms are not defined in relevant treaties nor do they benefit from critical judicial explanation. This has caused challenges for both academics and military commanders alike in explaining and applying the test for proportionality. The Article expands upon two points that were raised and generated interesting discussion at The Second Israel Defense Forces International Conference on the Law of Armed Conflict during a panel that dealt with contemporary issues in proportionality

Trends and Issues in Not for Profit Camping

The purpose of this study was to examine in­fluences on not for profit agencies involved in camping programs to determine critical trends and issues related to organized camping. The American Camping Association (ACA) Not for Profit Forum and Council funded this study. The project consisted of three data collection phases: 1) an extensive literature review; 2) a survey sent to a random sample of camp directors and their not for profit agency executives; and 3) focus groups conducted at a national ACA con­ference. This descriptive research study uses information from the second phase of this pro­ject to present quantitative data about percep­tions of the trends and issues in not for profit camping

Waiting for cheekbones

In this novel, Anne struggles to carve her identity and to re-evaluate the significant relationships in her life -- with her family, and with her past and present husband

Fashioning Anti-Semitism: Virginia’s Woolf’ “The Duchess and The Jeweller” and the readers of Harper’s Bazaar

Depuis sa parution dans le Harper’s Bazaar en 1938, “The Duchess and the Jeweller” a été dénoncée comme étant ouvertement raciste. Pourtant, si l'agent littéraire, Jacques Chambrun, a au départ rejeté “The Duchess and the Jeweller”, c'est à cause de l'anti-sémitisme du lectorat américain. Woolf révisa la nouvelle et enleva toutes les allusions directes à la judéité d' Oliver Bacon qui, malgré tout, ressort encore dans la caricature. En fait, ce que la description d'une rencontre subversive de deux classes et deux groupes sociaux condamne, c'est la pratique de la consommation des lecteurs.Les lecteurs habitués, d'une part, aux stéréotypes anti-sémites et d'autre part, au consumérisme à la mode, voient Bacon mettre en œuvre les habitudes modelées par le Harper’s Bazaar avant d'accepter sottement l'aristocratie telle qu'elle se présente. Par l'intermédiaire de la voix narrative, Woolf amène le lecteur à s'identifier à Oliver Bacon. Ainsi peut-il s'interroger sur les pratiques qui mènent à sa perte, tout en remettant en cause ses propres présupposés sur la valeur de la société aristocratique et sur le Juif comme nécessairement étranger. Woolf exige de ses personnages—et de ses lecteurs—qu'ils lisent d'un oeil plus critique, qu'ils prennent conscience de ce que le masque social cache. Paradoxalement, “The Duchess and the Jeweller” montre que nous sommes ce que nous sommes, quoi que nous possédions

Implementing a step down intermediate care service

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore implementation and development of step-down intermediate care (IC) in Glasgow City from the perspective of staff. Design/methodology/approach: The study used qualitative methods. Nine key members of staff were interviewed and three focus groups were run for social work, rehabilitation and care home staff. Framework analysis was used to identify common themes. Findings: The proposed benefits of IC were supported anecdotally by staff. Perceived enablers included: having a range of engaged stakeholders, strong leadership and a risk management system in place, good relationships, trust and communication between agencies, a discharge target, training of staff, changing perception of risk and risk aversion, the right infrastructure and staffing, an accommodation-based strategy for patients discharged from IC, the right context of political priorities, funding and ongoing adaptation of the model in discussion with frontline staff. Potential improvements included a common recording system shared across all agencies, improving transition of patients from hospital to IC, development of a tool for identifying suitable candidates for IC, overcoming placement issues on discharge from IC, ensuring appropriate rehabilitation facilities within IC units, attachment of social work staff to IC units and finding solutions to issues related to variation in health and social care systems between sectors and hospitals. Originality/value: The findings of this study help the ongoing refinement of the IC service. Some of the recommendations have already been implemented and will be of value to similar services being developed elsewhere

Productivity of Pre-Modern Agriculture in the Cucuteni-Trylillia Area

We present palaeoeconomy reconstructions for pre-modern agriculture; we select, wherever required, features and parameter values specific for the Cucuteni–Trypillia Cultural unity (CTU: 5,400–2,700 BC, mostly the territory of modern Ukraine, Moldova and Romania). We verify theself-consistency and viability of the archaeological evidence related to all major elements of the agricultural production cycle within the constraints provided by environmental and technological considerations. The starting point of our analysis is the palaeodiet structure suggested by archaeological data, stable isotope analyses of human remains, and palynology studies in the CTU area. We allow for the archeologically attested contributions of domesticated and wild animal products to the diet, develop plausible estimates of the yield of ancient cereal varieties cultivated with ancient techniques, and quantify the yield dependence on the time after initial planting and on rainfall (as a climate proxy). Our conclusions involve analysis of the labour costs of various seasonal parts of the agricultural cycle of both an individual and a family with a majority of members that do not engage in productive activities that require physical fitness, such as tillage. Finally, we put our results into the context of the exploitation territory and catchment analysis, to project various subsistence strategies into the exploitation territory of a farming settlement. The simplest economic complex based on cereals, domestic and wild animal products, with fallow cropping, appears to be capable of supporting an isolated, relatively small farming community of 50–300 people (2–10 ha in area) even without recourse to technological improvements such as the use of manure fertiliser. Our results strongly suggest that dairy products played a significant role in the dietary and labour balance. The smaller settlements are typical of the earliest Trypillia A but remain predominant at the later stages. A larger settlement of several hundred people could function in isolation, perhaps with a larger fraction of cereals in the diet, only with technological innovations, such as manure fertiliser and, most importantly, ard tillage. The ard relieves radically the extreme time pressure associated with soil preparation for sowing. It appears that very large settlements of a few hundred hectares in area, found in the CTU region, could function only if supported by satellite farming villages and stable exchange networks. In turn, this implies social division of labour and occupation, sufficiently complex social relations, stable exchange channels, etc.: altogether, a proto-urban character of such settlements. A model is proposed for the lifetime of a farming settlement assuming that it is limited by the soil fertility (the depleted resources model), that provides a lifetime estimate consistent with the archaeological evidence available (100–150 years). It is shown that the lifetime strongly depends on the fraction of the arable land area kept fallow. We also discuss, quantify and assess some strategies to mitigate the risks of arable agriculture associated with strong temporal fluctuations in the cereal yield, such as manure fertilisation, increased fraction of cereals in the diet combined with producing grain surplus for emergency storage

Digital pulse actuated flow control on a centrifugal disc towards multiparameter water quality monitoring

In this paper we present a novel dissolvable film (DF) based valving architecture for use on the centrifugal microfluidic platform. We seal fluidic reservoirs on a disc substrate with a series of these valves such that, by pulsing the spin rate, the next valve in the series is opened. Thus centrifugal flow control advances from ‘analogue’ scheme, where valves are successively opened by incremental steps of the rotational frequency, to a ‘digital pulse’ based method. The performance of these valves is demonstrates through a disc designed towards multi-parameter water quality monitoring

Handwriting speed in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder: Are they really slower?

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Research in Developmental Disabilities. The published article is available at the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2013 Elsevier B.V.Handwriting difficulties are often included in descriptions of Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). They are cited as the most common reason for referral to health professionals following parent and teacher concerns about slow and untidy writing. The aim of this study was to compare handwriting performance in English children with and without DCD across a range of writing tasks, to gain a better understanding of the nature of ‘slowness’ so commonly reported. Twenty-eight 8–14 year-old children with a diagnosis of DCD participated in the study, with 28 typically developing age and gender matched controls. Participants completed the four handwriting tasks from the Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting (DASH) and wrote their own name; all on a digitising writing tablet. The number of words written, speed of pen movements and the time spent pausing during the tasks were calculated. The findings confirmed what many professionals report, that children with DCD produce less text than their peers. However, this was not due to slow movement execution, but rather a higher percentage of time spent pausing. Discussion centres on the understanding of the pausing phenomenon in children with DCD and areas for further research.Oxford Brookes Universit