336 research outputs found
African Challenges to the International Criminal Court: An Example of Populism?
Recent global efforts of the United States and England to withdraw from
international institutions, along with recent challenges to human rights courts from
Poland and Hungary, have been described as part of a growing global populist
backlash against the liberal international order. Several scholars have even identified
the recent threat of mass withdrawal of African states from the International Criminal
Court (ICC) as part of this global populist backlash. Are the African challenges to the
ICC part of a global populist movement developing in Africa? More fundamentally,
how are the African challenges to the ICC examples of populism, if at all? In this
paper, I show that, while there is considerable overlap between the strategies used by
particular African leaders to challenge the ICC and those typically considered
populist, as well as a discernible thin populist ideology to sustain them, there is
insufficient evidence of a larger anti-ICC populist movement in Africa. Although
Africa is not as united against the ICC as the populist narrative suggests, the recent
challenges to the Court from Africa pose a significant challenge to the Court, as the
institution is still in the early stages of building its legitimacy
The Astronomy of Aboriginal Australia
The traditional cultures of Aboriginal Australians include a significant
astronomical component, which is usually reported in terms of songs or stories
associated with stars and constellations. Here we argue that the astronomical
components extend further, and include a search for meaning in the sky, beyond
simply mirroring the earth-bound understanding. In particular, we have found
that traditional Aboriginal cultures include a deep understanding of the motion
of objects in the sky, and that this knowledge was used for practical purposes
such as constructing calendars. We also present evidence that traditional
Aboriginal Australians made careful records and measurements of cyclical
phenomena, and paid careful attention to unexpected phenomena such as eclipses
and meteorite impacts.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, IAU 260 conference proceeding
Cluster Radio Halos at the crossroads between astrophysics and cosmology in the SKA era
Giant Radio Halos (RH) are diffuse, Mpc-sized, synchrotron radio sources
observed in a fraction of merging galaxy clusters. The current scenario for the
origin of RHs assumes that turbulence generated during cluster mergers
re-accelerates pre-existing fossil and/or secondary electrons in the
intra-cluster-medium (ICM) to the energies necessary to produce the observed
radio emission. Moreover, more relaxed clusters could host diffuse "off state"
halos produced by secondary electrons. In this Chapter we use Monte Carlo
simulations, that combine turbulent-acceleration physics and the generation of
secondaries in the ICM, to calculate the occurrence of RHs in the Universe,
their spectral properties and connection with properties of the hosting
clusters. Predictions for SKA1 surveys are presented at low (100-300 MHz) and
mid (1-2 GHz) frequencies assuming the expected sensitivities and spatial
resolutions of SKA1. SKA1 will step into an unexplored territory allowing us to
study the formation and evolution of RHs in a totally new range of cluster
masses and redshift, allowing firm tests of the current theoretical hypothesis.
In particular, the combination of SKA1-LOW and SUR will allow the discovery of
~1000 ultrasteep- spectrum halos and to detect for the very first time "off
state" RHs. We expect that at least ~2500 giant RHs will be discovered by
SKA1-LOW surveys up to z~0.6. Remarkably these surveys will be sensitive to RHs
in a cluster mass range (down to ~10^14 solar masses) and redshifts (up to ~1)
that are unexplored by current observations. SKA1 surveys will be highly
competitive with present and future SZ-surveys in the detection of
high-redshift massive objects.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, to appear in proceedings of "Advancing
Astrophysics with the Square Kilometre Array" PoS(AASKA14)07
Reinventing grounded theory: some questions about theory, ground and discovery
Grounded theory’s popularity persists after three decades of broad-ranging critique. In this article three problematic notions are discussed—‘theory,’ ‘ground’ and ‘discovery’—which linger in the continuing use and development of grounded theory procedures. It is argued that far from providing the epistemic security promised by grounded theory, these notions—embodied in continuing reinventions of grounded theory—constrain and distort qualitative inquiry, and that what is contrived is not in fact theory in any meaningful sense, that ‘ground’ is a misnomer when talking about interpretation and that what ultimately materializes following grounded theory procedures is less like discovery and more akin to invention. The procedures admittedly provide signposts for qualitative inquirers, but educational researchers should be wary, for the significance of interpretation, narrative and reflection can be undermined in the procedures of grounded theory
A Spitzer survey of Deep Drilling Fields to be targeted by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will observe several Deep Drilling Fields (DDFs) to a greater depth and with a more rapid cadence than the main survey. In this paper, we describe the ‘DeepDrill’ survey, which used the Spitzer Space Telescope Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) to observe three of the four currently defined DDFs in two bands, centred on 3.6 and 4.5 μm. These observations expand the area that was covered by an earlier set of observations in these three fields by the Spitzer Extragalactic Representative Volume Survey (SERVS). The combined DeepDrill and SERVS data cover the footprints of the LSST DDFs in the Extended Chandra Deep Field–South (ECDFS) field, the ELAIS-S1 field (ES1), and the XMM-Large-Scale Structure Survey field (XMM-LSS). The observations reach an approximate 5σ point-source depth of 2 μJy (corresponding to an AB magnitude of 23.1; sufficient to detect a 10¹¹M⊙ galaxy out to z ≈ 5) in each of the two bands over a total area of ≈29 deg². The dual-band catalogues contain a total of 2.35 million sources. In this paper, we describe the observations and data products from the survey, and an overview of the properties of galaxies in the survey. We compare the source counts to predictions from the SHARK semi-analytic model of galaxy formation. We also identify a population of sources with extremely red ([3.6]−[4.5] >1.2) colours which we show mostly consists of highly obscured active galactic nuclei
Big data opportunities and challenges for assessing multiple stressors across scales in aquatic ecosystems
Aquatic ecosystems are under threat from multiple stressors, which vary in distribution and intensity across temporal and spatial scales. Monitoring and assessment of these ecosystems have historically focussed on collection of physical and chemical information and increasingly include associated observations on biological condition. However, ecosystem assessment is often lacking because the scale and quality of biological observations frequently fail to match those available from physical and chemical measurements. The advent of high-performance computing, coupled with new earth observation platforms, has accelerated the adoption of molecular and remote sensing tools in ecosystem assessment. To assess how emerging science and tools can be applied to study multiple stressors on a large (ecosystem) scale and to facilitate greater integration of approaches among different scientific disciplines, a workshop was held on 10-12 September 2014 at the Sydney Institute of Marine Sciences, Australia. Here we introduce a conceptual framework for assessing multiple stressors across ecosystems using emerging sources of big data and critique a range of available big-data types that could support models for multiple stressors. We define big data as any set or series of data, which is either so large or complex, it becomes difficult to analyse using traditional data analysis methods
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