State opinio juris and international humanitarian law pluralism

International humanitarian law has developed through a pluralistic process. Its history reveals a pattern of rough proportionality between State opinio juris and non-State expressions of law. These diverse sources have maintained a respectable yet realistic balance between humanity and military necessity. However, current IHL dialogue presents a stark contrast to the vibrant and pluralistic exchanges of the past. The substantive input of non-State actors such as non-governmental organizations, tribunals, and scholars far outpaces the work of States. Parity of input, especially in quantitative terms, is surely too much to demand and surely not necessary given the special status of State opinio juris. However, States’ legal agencies and agents should be equipped, organized, and re-empowered to participate actively in the interpretation and development of IHL. This article, extracted from a larger work, argues that reinvigorating opinio juris would reestablish the pluralistic IHL dialogue that formerly tested, updated, and enriched the balance between military necessity and humanity

Beyond state-centrism: international law and non-state actors in cyberspace

Classically, States and non-State actors were differentiated not only by disparities in legal status but also by significant imbalances in resources and capabilities. Not surprisingly, international law developed a State-centric bias to account for these imbalances. Cyberspace and cyber operations, however, have closed a number of formerly significant gaps between States’ and non-State actors’ abilities to compromise international peace and security. In fact, some non-State actors now match, if not exceed, the cyber capabilities of many States in this respect. Where public international law had long proved chiefly relevant to States’ interactions with other States, cyber operations by non-State actors increase the frequency with which public international law provides relevant and binding legal rules. This article surveys existing public international law for norms relevant to the cyber interactions of cyber-empowered States and non-State actors. Specifically, the article illustrates how the principles of sovereignty, State responsibility and the jus ad bellum are particularly relevant to States engaged in struggles with non-State actors for security and supremacy in cyberspace

University of Westminster Open Access Policy

This policy supports the principle of making the results of publicly funded and peer-reviewed research available via open access to enable the widest possible dissemination and reuse of its research and to ensure compliance with funder requirements. It outlines the obligations and key expectations for researchers and the institution when enabling open access to research outputs created at the University of Westminster. This policy updates the previous University of Westminster Open Access Policy 2018. This policy was written in June 2023 and was approved by Academic Council on 07/12/2023

Collaborating with users to create a repository fit for practice-based research: a case study from the University of Westminster

The repository team at the University of Westminster worked closely with practice-based research groups in arts and architecture to improve and redesign an organisational research repository. The result was better support for non text-based research outputs such as artefacts, exhibitions and digital or visual media, and their creators

Least Squares Ranking on Graphs

Given a set of alternatives to be ranked, and some pairwise comparison data, ranking is a least squares computation on a graph. The vertices are the alternatives, and the edge values comprise the comparison data. The basic idea is very simple and old: come up with values on vertices such that their differences match the given edge data. Since an exact match will usually be impossible, one settles for matching in a least squares sense. This formulation was first described by Leake in 1976 for rankingfootball teams and appears as an example in Professor Gilbert Strang's classic linear algebra textbook. If one is willing to look into the residual a little further, then the problem really comes alive, as shown effectively by the remarkable recent paper of Jiang et al. With or without this twist, the humble least squares problem on graphs has far-reaching connections with many current areas ofresearch. These connections are to theoretical computer science (spectral graph theory, and multilevel methods for graph Laplacian systems); numerical analysis (algebraic multigrid, and finite element exterior calculus); other mathematics (Hodge decomposition, and random clique complexes); and applications (arbitrage, and ranking of sports teams). Not all of these connections are explored in this paper, but many are. The underlying ideas are easy to explain, requiring only the four fundamental subspaces from elementary linear algebra. One of our aims is to explain these basic ideas and connections, to get researchers in many fields interested in this topic. Another aim is to use our numerical experiments for guidance on selecting methods and exposing the need for further development.Comment: Added missing references, comparison of linear solvers overhauled, conclusion section added, some new figures adde

Bringing your user community with you...a story of successful engagement

Engagement with the practice-based research community is challenging and not helped by repository architecture and funder mandates focussed on the capture of and open access to text-based outputs (e.g. journal articles). The capture of creative arts and other practice-based (non-text) outputs have been considered as almost an afterthought, forming part of a wider, changing portfolio including the original object and related documentation (research data). Institutions often place these objects in an open access publications repository and the associated documentation in a data repository, potentially fracturing what should be one conversation with those on open access taking place in different forums to those on research data; different teams may also be supporting these areas, including libraries, archives, records management and research offices. A number of projects have made real progress highlighting the need for simplified templates, appropriate metadata, visually appealing design such as slideshows and the ability to re-use content which resulted in updated to repository software. There is however work to be done with attendees at the Repository Fringe conference in 2018 expressing continuing concerns relating to engagement. This presentation offers tips based on how the University of Westminster, an institution with a history of practice-based research, has successfully engaged with this research community throughout the development of their single repository solution

Geographical Coarsegraining of Complex Networks

We perform the renormalization-group-like numerical analysis of geographically embedded complex networks on the two-dimensional square lattice. At each step of coarsegraining procedure, the four vertices on each $2 \times 2$ square box are merged to a single vertex, resulting in the coarsegrained system of the smaller sizes. Repetition of the process leads to the observation that the coarsegraining procedure does not alter the qualitative characteristics of the original scale-free network, which opens the possibility of subtracting a smaller network from the original network without destroying the important structural properties. The implication of the result is also suggested in the context of the recent study of the human brain functional network.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Understanding the therapeutic benefits of engagement with the natural environment within the Dandelion Time approach: a review of literature

There is a large and growing body of literature relating to the benefits of engagement with, or connection to, the natural environment. However, an initial scoping review found that the majority of this literature is focused on adults rather than children and on generalised health and well-being benefits rather than on specifically therapeutic perspectives. No studies were found that matched exactly to the work of Dandelion Time (DT). In order to maximise the relevance of this review to Dandelion Time, the research team drew upon the principles of ecoliteracy (Capra, 1994) to conceptualise The Dandelion Time approach. This ‘language of nature’ uses the ecosystem organizational patterns of networks, feedback, self-regulation and self-organization, and can offer a model for successful human systems

Climate Change: From Science to Practice

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Climate change poses a significant threat to human health. Understanding how climate science can be translated into public health practice is an essential first step in enabling robust adaptation and improving resiliency to climate change. RECENT FINDINGS: Recent research highlights the importance of iterative approaches to public health adaptation to climate change, enabling uncertainties of health impacts and barriers to adaptation to be accounted for. There are still significant barriers to adaptation, which are context-specific and thus present unique challenges to public health practice. The implementation of flexible adaptation approaches, using frameworks targeted for public health, is key to ensuring robust adaptation to climate change in public health practice. The BRACE framework provides an excellent approach for health adaptation to climate change. Combining this with the insights provided and by the adaptation pathways approach allows for more deliberate accounting of long-term uncertainties. The mainstreaming of climate change adaptation into public health practice and planning is important in facilitating this approach and overcoming the significant barriers to effective adaptation. Yet, the immediate and future limits to adaptation provide clear justification for urgent and accelerated efforts to mitigate climate change

Hardcore classification: identifying play styles in social games using network analysis

In the social network of a web-based online game, all players are not equal. Through network analysis, we show that the community of players in a online social game is an example of a scale free small world network and that the growth of the player-base obeys a power law. The community is centred around a minority group of ``hardcore" players who define the social environment for the game, and without whom the social network would collapse. Methods are discussed for identifying this critically important subset of players automatically through analysing social behaviours within the game