Relativising human rights

Standards-based measures of country human rights performance yields a performance ranking for countries that is “absolute” or reflects the current state of human rights performance without taking into account the relative social, political, or economic conditions within countries. While absolute ranking is useful, it can lead to perverse outcomes in other areas of work. This article provides an alternative method for ranking country human rights performance that takes into account an array of additional variables that are related to the protection of civil and political rights. The method involves creating a relative score to compare different measures of human rights performance over time and across different regions. This approach leads to a view of relative human rights performance that should be of interest to human rights scholars and practitioners

Coronal and chromospheric physics

The Solar Maximum Mission support program is mentioned along with investigations of the solar corona, prominences, and chromosphere. The solar limb was studied using far infrared and submillimeter photometry. Stokes profiles obtained from sunspot observations were examined with a polarimetric technique

Coronal and chromospheric physics

Achievements and completed results are discussed for investigations covering solar activity during the solar maximum mission and the solar maximum year; other studies of solar activity and variability; infrared and submillimeter photometry; solar-related atomic physics; coronal and transition region studies; prominence research; chromospheric research in quiet and active regions; solar dynamics; eclipse studies; and polarimetry and magnetic field measurements. Contributions were also made in defining the photometric filterograph instrument for the solar optical telescope, designing the combined filter spectrograph, and in expressing the scientific aims and implementation of the solar corona diagnostic mission

Tensions in setting health care priorities for South Africa's children.

The new South African constitution commits the government to guarantee "basic health services "for every child under 18. Primary health care for pregnant women and children under six and elements of essential primary health care have received priority. At present, there is little analysis of the moral considerations involved in making choices about more advanced or costly health care which may, arguably, also be "basic". This paper illustrates some of the tensions in setting priorities for a just macroallocation of children's health care, given the realities of need and scarce resources, and the commitment to equality of basic opportunities. Originally published Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 24, No. 4, Aug 199

Control flow in the wild : a first look at 13K Java projects (Extended abstract)

No abstract

SST prediction methodologies and verification considerations for dynamical mid-summer rainfall forecasts for South Africa

Seasonal-to-interannual hindcasts (re-forecasts) for December-January-February (DJF) produced at a 1-month lead-time by the ECHAM4.5 atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) are verified after calibrating model output to DJF rainfall at 94 districts across South Africa. The AGCM is forced with SST forecasts produced by (i) statistically predicted SSTs, and (ii) predicted SSTs from a dynamically coupled ocean-atmosphere model. The latter SST forecasts in turn consist of an ensemble mean of SST forecasts, and also by considering the individual ensemble members of the SST forecasts. Probabilistic hindcasts produced for two separate category thresholds are verified over a 24-year test period from 1978/79 to 2001/02 by investigating the various AGCM configurations’ attributes of discrimination (whether the forecasts are discernibly different given different outcomes) and reliability (whether the confidence communicated in the forecasts is appropriate). Deterministic hindcast skill is additionally calculated through a range of correlation estimates between hindcast and observed DJF rainfall. For both probabilistic and deterministic verification the hindcasts produced by forcing the AGCM with dynamically predicted SSTs attain higher skill levels than the AGCM forced with statistical SSTs. Moreover, ensemble mean SST forecasts lead to improved skill over forecasts that considered an ensemble distribution of SST forecasts.Keywords: AGCM, SST predictions, seasonal forecasting, South Afric

Oxygen clamps in gold nanowires

We investigate how the insertion of an oxygen atom in an atomically thin gold nanowire can affect its rupture. We find, using ab initio total energy density functional theory calculations, that O atoms when inserted in gold nanowires form not only stable but also very strong bonds, in such a way that they can extract atoms from a stable tip, serving in this way as a clamp that could be used to pull a string of gold atoms.Comment: 4 pages; 4 figure