Ongoing crimes and the unlikelihood of punishment - Syria as a case study

Taking the war in Syria as a case study, this dissertation proposes an account of criminal accountability that merits the language that is expressed by calls for criminal accountability, even where physical punishment is not possible. Syria is, of course, a society that is in the midst of ongoing conflict one where almost every party on the battlefield is committing atrocity crimes against civilians. In response, and importantly while the conflict continues, the international community, the United Nations, and the Syrian diaspora have made calls for holding war criminals accountable. But, what are values of these calls if there is a lack of institutional criminal accountability to punish perpetrators. The Syrian government, who is reportedly involved in atrocity crimes against its citizens, controls domestic criminal institutions in Syria. Syria is not a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and there seems to be no international will to refer crimes committed during the conflict in Syria to it. This dissertation poses the question: given the significant unlikelihood of institutional criminal punishment, are there justifications for calls for criminal accountability in the midst of the ongoing Syrian war? The philosophy of criminal law provides several justifications as to why criminal justice institutions, in stable societies hold perpetrators to account and punish them. I suggest that calls for criminal accountability are important because they express willingness to punish. Calls are not punishment, but they aim to deliver the same values that punishment delivers. Therefore, the values that calls for criminal accountability express stem from the values of the criminal justice system itself, including those values stemming from fact-finding and trials. This dissertation advocates for calls that aim to create the possibility of punishment. The language that has been expressed by these calls for criminal accountability has value to societies in general, and to victims in particular. The values of calls might not be as important as the values of punishment but calls express willingness to hold criminals accountable. The Syrian case triggers some critical questions for international criminal law and policy. It challenges some established norms and doctrines, showing their inability to find solutions to cases where civilians are suffering heinous crimes, and where neither the law nor the international community has been able to act. This dissertation proposes that, even when there is no possibility of holding perpetrators accountable during ongoing conflicts, there is still value in the messages that such calls for criminal accountability express. It as well argues that using the language of criminal accountability is much stronger than using the language of human rights. Criminal law generates punitive responses as opposed to undefined responses that calls for human right violations generate. In the absence of a criminal justice system that has the ability, willingness, and authority to call perpetrators to account, it is our humanity that justifies such calls

Ongoing crimes and the unlikelihood of punishment - Syria as a case study

Taking the war in Syria as a case study, this dissertation proposes an account of criminal accountability that merits the language that is expressed by calls for criminal accountability, even where physical punishment is not possible. Syria is, of course, a society that is in the midst of ongoing conflict one where almost every party on the battlefield is committing atrocity crimes against civilians. In response, and importantly while the conflict continues, the international community, the United Nations, and the Syrian diaspora have made calls for holding war criminals accountable. But, what are values of these calls if there is a lack of institutional criminal accountability to punish perpetrators. The Syrian government, who is reportedly involved in atrocity crimes against its citizens, controls domestic criminal institutions in Syria. Syria is not a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and there seems to be no international will to refer crimes committed during the conflict in Syria to it. This dissertation poses the question: given the significant unlikelihood of institutional criminal punishment, are there justifications for calls for criminal accountability in the midst of the ongoing Syrian war? The philosophy of criminal law provides several justifications as to why criminal justice institutions, in stable societies hold perpetrators to account and punish them. I suggest that calls for criminal accountability are important because they express willingness to punish. Calls are not punishment, but they aim to deliver the same values that punishment delivers. Therefore, the values that calls for criminal accountability express stem from the values of the criminal justice system itself, including those values stemming from fact-finding and trials. This dissertation advocates for calls that aim to create the possibility of punishment. The language that has been expressed by these calls for criminal accountability has value to societies in general, and to victims in particular. The values of calls might not be as important as the values of punishment but calls express willingness to hold criminals accountable. The Syrian case triggers some critical questions for international criminal law and policy. It challenges some established norms and doctrines, showing their inability to find solutions to cases where civilians are suffering heinous crimes, and where neither the law nor the international community has been able to act. This dissertation proposes that, even when there is no possibility of holding perpetrators accountable during ongoing conflicts, there is still value in the messages that such calls for criminal accountability express. It as well argues that using the language of criminal accountability is much stronger than using the language of human rights. Criminal law generates punitive responses as opposed to undefined responses that calls for human right violations generate. In the absence of a criminal justice system that has the ability, willingness, and authority to call perpetrators to account, it is our humanity that justifies such calls

Flexible sensor concept and an efficient integrated sensing controlling for an efficient human-robot collaboration using 3D local global sensing systems

Human-robot collaboration with traditional industrial robots is a cardinal step towards agile manufacturing and re-manufacturing processes. These processes require constant human presence, which results in lower operational efficiency based on current industrial collision avoidance systems. The work proposes a novel local and global sensing framework, which discusses a flexible sensor concept comprising a single 2D or 3D LiDAR while formulating occlusion due to the robot body. Moreover, this work extends the previous local global sensing methodology to incorporate local (co-moving) 3D sensors on the robot body. The local 3D camera faces toward the robot occlusion area, resulted from the robot body in front of a single global 3D LiDAR. Apart from the sensor concept, this work also proposes an efficient method to estimate sensitivity and reactivity of sensing and control sub-systems The proposed methodologies are tested with a heavy-duty industrial robot along with a 3D LiDAR and camera. The integrated local global sensing methods allow high robot speeds resulting in process efficiency while ensuring human safety and sensor flexibility

Smart learning environment: Teacher’s role in assessing classroom attention

The main purpose of this article is to investigate the impact of teacher’s position on students’ performance in higher education. A new pedagogical approach based on collaborative learning is used due to the design of a smart learning environment (SLE). This workspace uses, respectively, information and communication technologies (ICT) and radio frequency identification (RFID)-based indoor positioning system in order to examine students’ perceptions and the involvement of groups into this smart classroom. The merge of interactive multimedia system, ubiquitous computing and several handheld devices should lead to a successful active learning process. Firstly, we provide a detailed description of the proposed collaborative environment using mainly new technologies and indoor location system serving as a platform for evaluating attention. The research provides an obvious consensus on the teacher’s role in assessing classroom attention. We discuss our preliminary results on how teacher’s position influences essentially students’ participation. Our first experiments show that the integration of novel technologies in the area of higher education is extremely promoting the traditional way of teaching. The smart classroom model has been recommended to support this evolution. As a result, the found results indicate that the teacher’s position increases the learner’s motivation, engagement and effective learning

Workplace health promotion in health care settings in Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania

Funding Information: This work was supported by the Nordplus Adult project “The health education at workplace survey: reality and needs” (NPAD-2013/10083). The project was developed to study WHP in health care settings in Lithuania, Latvia and Finland and had following goals: (1) to analyze theoretical bases and legal database of WHP in three European countries (see [24] ); (2) to analyze existed situation of WHP in health care institutions as well as to identify possible needs for WHP activities. Publisher Copyright: © 2017 The Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Copyright: Copyright 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.Background and objective Health care workers (HCWs) have a great background to promote their health – not only their professional knowledge on health but often also special equipment in their work environment. However, it is unclear if HCWs can use such infrastructure to promote their own health as well as what is their motivation to change their own lifestyles. Thus, the aim of the article was to describe workplace health promotion (WHP) situation in health care settings in Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania. Materials and methods A questionnaire survey of 357 workers from health care sector in three European countries was conducted. Participants were asked to indicate various WHP activities/facilities/programs organized at their workplaces, WHP needs, opportunities to initiate changes related to the healthiness of their workplaces, and readiness to change their lifestyles. Results Participants from three European countries differed in their WHP needs and in their responses on various activities/facilities/programs implemented at the institutions. Workers from Finnish institutions had the greatest opportunities to make initiatives relevant to their workplaces’ healthiness, while Lithuanian workers were least provided with such opportunities. Furthermore, the results showed that there were differences of readiness to change among the workers from the three countries. Conclusions HCWs recognized various WHP activities, facilities and programs organized at their workplaces; however, their needs were notably higher than the situation reported. WHP situation differed among the three European countries.publishersversionPeer reviewe

Responsibility to Protect (R2P), The Responsibility of the International Community to Protect Syrian Citizens

The responsibility to protect (R2P) doctrine allows the international community to intervene for humanitarian purposes in events of massive violations of human rights. However, the legality of humanitarian intervention has received considerable critical attention because of its direct conflict with two fundamental norms in international law: the prohibition of the use of force, and the principle of state sovereignty. In Syria, mass atrocity crimes are escalating on a daily basis. Until now, international efforts have failed to find a peaceful formula to stop the crisis. International law allows the Security Council to authorize humanitarian intervention under the power of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations. Politically, however, the Security Council is deadlocked. This study concludes that humanitarian intervention is illegal or, at best, its legality is ambiguous. The research stresses the need to re-evaluate the international legal norms to respond to overwhelming humanitarian necessity

Ongoing crimes and the unlikelihood of punishment - Syria as a case study

Taking the war in Syria as a case study, this dissertation proposes an account of criminal accountability that merits the language that is expressed by calls for criminal accountability, even where physical punishment is not possible. Syria is, of course, a society that is in the midst of ongoing conflict one where almost every party on the battlefield is committing atrocity crimes against civilians. In response, and importantly while the conflict continues, the international community, the United Nations, and the Syrian diaspora have made calls for holding war criminals accountable. But, what are values of these calls if there is a lack of institutional criminal accountability to punish perpetrators. The Syrian government, who is reportedly involved in atrocity crimes against its citizens, controls domestic criminal institutions in Syria. Syria is not a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and there seems to be no international will to refer crimes committed during the conflict in Syria to it. This dissertation poses the question: given the significant unlikelihood of institutional criminal punishment, are there justifications for calls for criminal accountability in the midst of the ongoing Syrian war? The philosophy of criminal law provides several justifications as to why criminal justice institutions, in stable societies hold perpetrators to account and punish them. I suggest that calls for criminal accountability are important because they express willingness to punish. Calls are not punishment, but they aim to deliver the same values that punishment delivers. Therefore, the values that calls for criminal accountability express stem from the values of the criminal justice system itself, including those values stemming from fact-finding and trials. This dissertation advocates for calls that aim to create the possibility of punishment. The language that has been expressed by these calls for criminal accountability has value to societies in general, and to victims in particular. The values of calls might not be as important as the values of punishment but calls express willingness to hold criminals accountable. The Syrian case triggers some critical questions for international criminal law and policy. It challenges some established norms and doctrines, showing their inability to find solutions to cases where civilians are suffering heinous crimes, and where neither the law nor the international community has been able to act. This dissertation proposes that, even when there is no possibility of holding perpetrators accountable during ongoing conflicts, there is still value in the messages that such calls for criminal accountability express. It as well argues that using the language of criminal accountability is much stronger than using the language of human rights. Criminal law generates punitive responses as opposed to undefined responses that calls for human right violations generate. In the absence of a criminal justice system that has the ability, willingness, and authority to call perpetrators to account, it is our humanity that justifies such calls

Development of Integration Algorithms for Vision/Force Robot Control with Automatic Decision System

In advanced robot applications, the challenge today is that the robot should perform different successive subtasks to achieve one or more complicated tasks similar to human. Hence, this kind of tasks required to combine different kind of sensors in order to get full information about the work environment. However, from the point of view of control, more sensors mean more possibilities for the structure of the control system. As shown previously, vision and force sensors are the most common external sensors in robot system. As a result, in scientific papers it can be found numerous control algorithms and different structures for vision/force robot control, e.g. shared, traded control etc. The lacks in integration of vision/force robot control could be summarized as follows: • How to define which subspaces should be vision, position or force controlled? • When the controller should switch from one control mode to another one? • How to insure that the visual information could be reliably used? • How to define the most appropriated vision/force control structure? In many previous works, during performing a specified task one kind of vision/force control structure has been used which is pre-defined by the programmer. In addition to that, if the task is modified or changed, it would be much complicated for the user to describe the task and to define the most appropriated vision/force robot control especially if the user is inexperienced. Furthermore, vision and force sensors are used only as simple feedback (e.g. vision sensor is used usually as position estimator) or they are intended to avoid the obstacles. Accordingly, much useful information provided by the sensors which help the robot to perform the task autonomously is missed. In our opinion, these lacks of defining the most appropriate vision/force robot control and the weakness in the utilization from all the information which could be provided by the sensors introduce important limits which prevent the robot to be versatile, autonomous, dependable and user-friendly. For this purpose, helping to increase autonomy, versatility, dependability and user-friendly in certain area of robotics which requires vision/force integration is the scope of this thesis. More concretely: 1. Autonomy: In the term of an automatic decision system which defines the most appropriated vision/force control modes for different kinds of tasks and chooses the best structure of vision/force control depending on the surrounding environments and a priori knowledge. 2. Versatility: By preparing some relevant scenarios for different situations, where both the visual servoing and force control are necessary and indispensable. 3. Dependability: In the term of the robot should depend on its own sensors more than on reprogramming and human intervention. In other words, how the robot system can use all the available information which could be provided by the vision and force sensors, not only for the target object but also for the features extraction of the whole scene. 4. User-friendly: By designing a high level description of the task, the object and the sensor configuration which is suitable also for inexperienced user. If the previous properties are relatively achieved, the proposed robot system can: • Perform different successive and complex tasks. • Grasp/contact and track imprecisely placed objects with different poses. • Decide automatically the most appropriate combination of vision/force feedback for every task and react immediately to the changes from one control cycle to another because of occurrence of some unforeseen events. • Benefit from all the advantages of different vision/force control structures. • Benefit from all the information provided by the sensors. • Reduce the human intervention or reprogramming during the execution of the task. • Facilitate the task description and entering of a priori-knowledge for the user, even if he/she is inexperienced