The ambivalent shadow of the pre-Wilsonian rise of international law

The generation of American international lawyers who founded the American Society of International Law in 1906 and nurtured the soil for what has been retrospectively called a “moralistic legalistic approach to international relations” remains little studied. A survey of the rise of international legal literature in the U.S. from the mid-19th century to the eve of the Great War serves as a backdrop to the examination of the boosting effect on international law of the Spanish American War in 1898. An examination of the Insular Cases before the US Supreme Court is then accompanied by the analysis of a number of influential factors behind the pre-war rise of international law in the U.S. The work concludes with an examination of the rise of natural law doctrines in international law during the interwar period and the critiques addressed.by the realist founders of the field of “international relations” to the “moralistic legalistic approach to international relation

Transient Myocarditis Associated with Fulminant Colitis

Case Summary. An 18-year old man presented with a three-week history of abdominal pain, weight loss and bloody diarrhoea. He was profoundly septic, with generalised abdominal tenderness. CT and flexible sigmoidosopy confirmed colitis of the colon with rectal sparing. Laparotomy was performed when conservative management failed to improve his condition. Subtotal colectomy, with end ileostomy and mucus fistula formation, was performed in light of active colitis. Despite successful operative intervention the patient acute left ventricular failure, raising the possibility of giant cell myocarditis, which fully resolved before a definitive diagnosis could be reached. Discussion. It is possible that the transient cardiac failure in this case may represent an overwhelming inflammatory response or myocarditis. Inflammatory bowel disease is rarely associated with giant cell myocarditis (GCM). GCM usually affects a young population and its prognosis is variable, ranging from complete recovery, remission with recurrence and fatality. The management of this group of patients is still relatively experimental. Conclusion. Fulminant colitis can be associated with a rapid deterioration in cardiac function. Causes include sepsis, systemic inflammatory response syndrome or myocarditis. GCM should be considered in patients with new onset of left ventricular failure that decline rapidly

The Grounds and Extent of Legal Responsibility

To question that is the title of this symposium, What Do Compensatory Damages Compensate?, requires consideration of the basic grounds and purposes of legal responsibility. The question is usefully brought into sharper focus by the specific questions and puzzles posed to the contributors to stimulate thought and discussion

Strickly finite-range potential for light and heavy nuclei

Strictly finite-range (SFR) potentials are exactly zero beyond their finite range. Single-particle energies and densities, as well as S-matrix pole trajectories, are studied in a few SFR potentials suited for the description of neutrons interacting with light and heavy nuclei. The SFR potentials considered are the standard cutoff Woods-Saxon (CWS) potentials and two potentials approaching zero smoothly: the SV potential introduced by Salamon and Vertse [Phys. Rev. C 77, 037302 (2008)] and the SS potential of Sahu and Sahu [Int. J. Mod. Phys. E 21, 1250067 (2012)]. The parameters  of these latter potentials were set so that the potentials may be similar to the CWS shape. The range of the SV and SS potentials scales with the cube root of the mass number of the core like the nuclear radius itself. For light nuclei a single term of the SV potential (with a single parameter) is enough for a good description of the neutron-nucleus interaction. The trajectories are compared with a benchmark for which the starting points (belonging to potential depth zero) can be determined independently. Even the CWS potential is found to conform to this benchmark if the range is identified with the cutoff radius. For the CWS potentials some trajectories show irregular shapes, while for the SV and SS potentials all trajectories behave regularly.Fil: Salamon, P.. MTA Institute for Nuclear Research; HungríaFil: Lovas, R. G.. MTA Institute for Nuclear Research; HungríaFil: Id Betan, Rodolfo Mohamed. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Ingeniería y Agrimensura; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Rosario. Instituto de Física de Rosario (i); ArgentinaFil: Vertse, T.. MTA Institute for Nuclear Research; Hungría. University of Debrecen. Faculty of Informatics; HungríaFil: Balkay, L.. University of Debrecen. Medical and Health Science Center. Institute of Nuclear Medicine; Hungrí

Adhesion State Estimation for Electrostatic Gripper Based on Online Capacitance Measure

Electroadhesion is a suitable technology for developing grippers for applications where fragile, compliant or variable shape objects need to be grabbed and where a retention action is typically preferred to a compression force. This article presents a self-sensing technique for electroadhesive devices (EAD) based on the capacitance measure. Specifically, we demonstrate that measuring the variation of the capacitance between electrodes of an EAD during the adhesion can provide useful information to automatically detect the successful grip of an object and the possible loss of adhesion during manipulation. To this aim, a dedicated electronic circuit is developed that is able to measure capacitance variations while the high voltage required for the adhesion is activated. A test bench characterization is presented to evaluate the self-sensing of capacitance during different states: (1) the EAD is far away from the object to be grasped; (2) the EAD is in contact with the object, but the voltage is not active (i.e., no adhesion); and (3) the EAD is activated and attached to the object. Correlation between the applied voltage, object material and shape and capacitance is made. The self-sensing EAD is then demonstrated in a closed-loop robotic application that employs a robot manipulator arm to pick and place objects of different kinds