The Law of the Sea and International Marine Archaeology: Abandoning Admiralty Law to Protect Historic Shipwrecks

This Comment assesses the marine archaeology provisions of UNCLOS III and argues that the principles embodied in U.S. abandoned shipwreck law may significantly contribute to cooperative efforts that determine the future of shipwrecks found in international waters. Part I compares the existing legal framework of international marine archaeology established by UNCLOS III with U.S. law on abandoned historic shipwrecks. Part II presents commentators\u27 interpretations of the Convention\u27s marine archaeology provisions. Part II emphasizes these commentators\u27 views on the ability of a nation to obtain jurisdiction over shipwreck recovery operations in international waters and whether nations should apply principles of salvage and finds to these efforts. Part III argues that UNCLOS III should be broadly interpreted to better reflect the U.S. view that salvage and finds law is inappropriate for historic shipwrecks. Finally, Part III proposes a legal structure for the treatment of historic shipwrecks found beyond domestic jurisdiction

Working times in atypical forms of employment: the special case of part-time work

Chapitre 5, à la suite de la conférence ACSEG 2001 à RennesIn the present article, we attempt to devise a typology of forms of part-time employment by applying a widely used neuronal methodology called Kohonen maps. Starting out with data that we describe using category-specific variables, we show how it is possible to represent observations and the modalities of the variables that define them simultaneously, on a single map. This allows us to ascertain, and to try to describe, the main categories of part-time employment

Keeping the Barbarians outside the Gate: Toward a Comprehensive International Agreement Protecting Cultural Property

Nations feel an obligation to provide-indeed, a nation\u27s citizens may demand-protection for their cultural property : the works of art or architecture, religious or historical artifacts, or other physical embodiments of a nation\u27s cultural output. When, however, such property is transported abroad, reclaiming the property may be difficult, at best, and all but impossible by nonviolent means, at worst. This Comment proposes a framework for a new international treaty governing both the treatment of cultural property and the creation of an international body to resolve disputes and promote the protection of cultural property. This is not a new goal, of course, but the Comment\u27s main contention is that it is possible to resolve the conflicts that have prevented past efforts in this regard from achieving meaningful success. In order to understand, much less resolve, the challenges inherent to this undertaking, a good deal of background is necessary. The term cultural property is difficult to define and the concept has a substantial history, so Section I briefly discusses this topic. Additionally, the challenges facing any international agreement regarding cultural property in the proposal, ratification, and application stages are legion, and numerous such challenges have proven their capacity as deal breakers, so these problems will be examined in Section II. A number of proposed agreements have been adopted or have fallen short of meaningful adoption; there is agreement that none of these proposals is adequate, so an examination of these failed proposals is prerequisite to understanding the reasons why proposed agreements obtain ratification or fail. Sections III and IV examine these historical agreements and various proposals. Section V proposes the framework for a new, comprehensive solution to international cultural-property disputes. Finally, Section VI offers conclusions about the potential for implementing, either in whole or in part, the Comment\u27s recommendations. [CONT

Availability of Educational Opportunities for Negroes in Hunt County in 1946-1947

It is hoped that this study might, by giving an accurate account of the present situation, arouse the school leaders to devise means of improving existing conditions. It was not the intent of the writer to point out the faults of the school system In order to criticize favorably or unfavorably those in charge of the administration. Reference to conditions in any of the schools studied could not be placed entirely upon the resent administration. This study embraces all of the Elementary and Secondary schools in Hunt County. But is limited to the Negro schools under the public school system. This study is limited to the year 1946-1947 in order to get an actual picture of conditions as they existed before the Standardization Law was passed, which forced some schools to make needed improvements in curriculum, teaching personnel, equipment, and the physical plant. The writer began this study during the year 1946-1947 and hopes with this year as a base to gauge the amount of progress that has been made to the present. The writer has set for himself this task, namely, to study the educational opportunities available to Negro youth in Hunt County with respect to both quantity and quality abailable as of the school year, 1946-1947

Specific Learning Disabilities: Beliefs about the Construct, Identification Methods, and Job Satisfaction Among Practicing School Psychologists

Students with specific learning disabilities (SLDs) account for approximately 40% of all students receiving special education services. Debate among professionals regarding the causes of SLDs and the most appropriate methods used to identify SLDs persists. This debate may be related to the increase in prevalence of SLDs since the implementation of special education law in 1975. There are three prominent theories regarding the cause of SLDs: (a) environmental theory, (b) biological theory, and (c) interactional theory. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) allows school districts to implement the following SLD identification procedures: (a) the IQAchievement discrepancy method, (b) response-to-intervention (RtI), and/or (c) alternative research-based methods, such as personal strengths and weaknesses (PSW). This study employed survey methodology to evaluate the intersection between school psychologists’ beliefs about the cause of SLDs, their preferred practices, their actual practices, and their job satisfaction associated with assessment. School psychologists are one member of a multidisciplinary team aimed toward identifying children with SLDs and are estimated to spend nearly half their time in special education decision making. This study also evaluated the influence alignment between school psychologists preferred and actual practices have on their job satisfaction associated with assessment. Findings showed that, similar to other professionals, school psychologists’ had varying beliefs about the causes of SLDs. Environmental beliefs were significantly correlated with a preference for RtI for SLD identification, while biological beliefs were significantly correlated with preferences for the IQ-Achievement discrepancy method and alternative research based procedures for SLD identification. Preferred methods of identification impacted all three identification methods, and beliefs about the cause of SLDs impacted actual PSW practices, above and beyond individual and school characteristics. Finally, greater alignment between preferred SLD identification practices and actual SLD identification practices was associated with higher levels of job satisfaction related to assessment. Implications and directions for future research are discussed

Observation of accelerating parabolic beams

We report the first observation of accelerating parabolic beams. These accelerating parabolic beams are similar to the Airy beams because they exhibit the unusual ability to remain diffraction-free while having a quadratic transverse shift during propagation. The amplitude and phase masks required to generate these beams are encoded onto a single liquid crystal display. Experimental results agree well with theory

On piezophase effects in mechanically loaded atomic scale Josephson junctions

The response of an intrinsic Josephson contact to externally applied stress is considered within the framework of the dislocation-induced atomic scale Josephson effect. The predicted quasi-periodic (Fraunhofer-like)stress-strain and stress-current patterns should manifest themselves for experimentally accessible values of applied stresses in intrinsically defected (e.g.,twinned) crystals.Comment: REVTEX (epsf style), 2 EPS figure

On-line relational SOM for dissimilarity data

International audienceIn some applications and in order to address real world situations better, data may be more complex than simple vectors. In some examples, they can be known through their pairwise dissimilarities only. Several variants of the Self Organizing Map algorithm were introduced to generalize the original algorithm to this framework. Whereas median SOM is based on a rough representation of the prototypes, relational SOM allows representing these prototypes by a virtual combination of all elements in the data set. However, this latter approach suffers from two main drawbacks. First, its complexity can be large. Second, only a batch version of this algorithm has been studied so far and it often provides results having a bad topographic organization. In this article, an on-line version of relational SOM is described and justified. The algorithm is tested on several datasets, including categorical data and graphs, and compared with the batch version and with other SOM algorithms for non vector data

Functional consequences of heterogeneous gap junction channel formation and its influence in health and disease

AbstractThe capacity of multiple connexins to hetero-oligomerize into functional heterogeneous gap junction channels has been demonstrated in vivo11Used herein to denote in an animal., in vitro22Used herein to denote in cultured cells., and in nonmammalian expression systems. These heterogeneous channels display gating activity, channel conductances, selectivity and regulatory behaviors that are sometimes not predicted by the behaviors of the corresponding homogeneous channels. Such observations suggest that heteromerization of gap junction proteins offers an efficient cellular strategy for finely regulating cell-to-cell communication. The available evidence strongly indicates that heterogeneous gap junction assembly is important to normal growth and differentiation, and may influence the appearance of several disease states. Definitive evidence that heterogeneous gap junction channels differentially regulate electrical conduction in excitable cells is absent. This review examines the prevalence, regulation, and implications of gap junction channel hetero-oligomerization

Presentation procedures in measuring emotion laterality via the auditory modality

For more than three decades cognitive neuroscientists have debated the lateralisation of emotion. Currently there are two theories in contention: the right hemisphere hypothesis and the valence hypothesis. The right hemisphere hypothesis is that all emotional are predominantly processed in the right cerebral hemisphere of the human brain while the valence hypothesis is that positive (or approachrelated) and negative (or withdrawal-related) emotions are processing in the left and right cerebral hemispheres respectively. In general listening studies aimed to measure the lateralisation of emotion have employed disparate presentation procedures resulting in inconsistent findings. The current study investigated the affective judgment of simple classes of auditory stimuli (e.g. tonal/atonal melodies) via three presentation procedures: monoaural (i.e. target with no competition), binaural (i.e. target with competing noise), and dichotic (i.e. target with competing melody). Overall, presentation procedure had a direct influence on observed asymmetry highlighting the need for consistency in listening studies aimed to measure the lateralisation of emotion