Palestine and the International Criminal Court institutional failure or bias?

The International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s selection of ‘situations’ to investigate is highly controversial. Perhaps the most controversial has been the failure of successive Prosecutors to investigate crimes committed by Israel and Hamas in the course of Operation Cast Lead 2008-2009. Initially, this was justified on the ground that Palestine was not a state. In the author’s view, this excuse is no longer valid since the recognition of the statehood of Palestine by the General Assembly in November 2012. The failure of the Prosecutor to investigate this situation, and of the Assembly of States Parties to authorize such an investigation when it was requested to do so in November 2012, has resulted in charges of political bias. The author argues that this failure supports the African Union’s claim that the Prosecutor’s Office has chosen to focus attention on Africa and refused to investigate ‘situations’ in other continents.http://jicj.oxfordjournals.org/hb201

Road profile estimation using an adaptive Youla- Kučera parametric observer: comparison to real profilers

International audienceRoad profile acts as a disturbance input to the vehicle dynamics and results in undesirable vibrations affecting the vehicle stability. A precise information of this data is mandatory for a better understanding of the vehicle dynamics behavior and active vehicle control systems design. However, direct measurements of the road profile are not trivial for technical and economical reasons, and thus alternative solutions are needed. This paper develops a novel observer, known as virtual sensor, suitable for real-time estimation of the road profile. The developed approach is carried on a quarter-car model and on measurements of the vehicle body. The road elevation is modeled as a sinusoidal disturbance signal acting on the vehicle system. Since this signal has unknown and time-varying characteristics, the proposed estimation method implements an adaptive control scheme based on the internal model principle and on the use of Youla-Kučera (YK) parametrization technique (also known as Q-parametrization). For performances assessment, estimations are comparatively evaluated with respect to measurements issued from Longitudinal Profile Analyzer (LPA) and Inertial Profiler (IP) instruments during experimental trials. The proposed method is also compared to the approach provided in (Doumiati et al. (2011)), where a stochastic Kalman filter is applied assuming a linear road model. Results show the effectiveness and pertinence of the present observation scheme

Fault Tolerant Strategy for Semi-Active Suspensions with LPV Accommodation

International audienceAbstract--A novel fault tolerant strategy to compensate multiplicative actuator faults (damper oil leakages) in a semiactive suspension system is proposed. The compensation of the lack of damping force caused by a faulty damper is carried on by the remainder three healthy semi-active dampers. Once a faulty damper is detected and isolated by a Fault Detection and Isolation strategy based on parity-space, an estimator is activated to compute the missing damping force to compensate. In order to fulfill the semi-active damper constraints, the fault accommodation is based on the Linear-Parameter Varying (LPV) control strategy. Thus, each corner has a fault estimator and an LPV controller oriented to comfort and road holding. Simulation results show that the proposed fault tolerant semiactive suspension improves the vehicle comfort up to 60% with respect to a controlled suspension without fault-tolerant strategy and 82% with respect to a passive suspension

Adaptive Road Profile Estimation in Semi-Active Car Suspensions

International audienceThe enhancement of the passengers comfort and their safety are part of the constant concerns for car manufacturers. As a solution, the semi-active damping control systems have emerged to adapt the suspension features, where the road profile is one of the most important factors that determine the automotive vehicle performance. Because direct measurements of the road condition represent expensive solutions and, are susceptible to be contaminated, this paper proposes a novel road profile estimator that offers the essential information (road roughness and its frequency) for the adjustment of the vehicle dynamics by using conventional sensors of cars. Based on the Q-parametrization approach, an adaptive observer estimates the dynamic road signal, posteriorly, a Fourier analysis is used to compute online the road roughness condition and perform an ISO 8608 classification. Experimental results on the rear-left corner of a 1:5 scale vehicle, equipped with Electro-Rheological (ER) dampers, have been used to validate the proposed road profile estimation method. Different ISO road classes evaluate online the performance of the road identification algorithm, whose results show that any road can be identified successfully at least 70% with a false alarm rate lower than 5%; the general accuracy of the road classifier is 95%. A second test with variable vehicle velocity shows the importance of the online frequency estimation to adapt the road estimation algorithm to any driving velocity, in this test the road is correctly estimated 868 of 1,042 m (error of 16.7%). Finally, the adaptability of the parametric road estimator to the semi-activeness property of the ER damper is tested at different damping coefficients

After Mazibuko: exploring the responses of communities excluded from South Africa’s water experiment

Despite a constitutional right to water, challenges remain for access to sufficient water in South Africa. This article considers the degree to which current legal provisions perpetuate approaches, which are antithetical to genuinely eco-socio-sustainable water access. Water in South Africa has largely been re-cast as a commodity, exposed to market rules, proving problematic for many and giving rise to various responses, including litigation. In the seminal case of Mazibuko the Constitutional Court failed to provide robust protection to the right to water, providing impetus for the formation of “commons” strategies for water allocation. Indeed “commoning” is beginning to represent not only an emerging conceptual strand in urban resource allocation, but also a dynamic, contemporary, eco-sensitive, socio-cultural phenomenon, driving innovative, interactive and inclusive forms of planning and social engagement. Against the backdrop of unequal water access, commoning offers glimpses of an empowering and enfranchising subaltern paradigm