International Courts in Atypical Political Environments: The Interplay of Prosecutorial Strategy, Evidence, and Court Authority in International Criminal Law

International audienc

Omens from the terms of trade-expectations about the next few years

The international economic development over the last century was characterised by various kinds of cycles. This article focusses on cyclical changes in the net barter terms of trade between primary products and manufactured goods. By comparing and contrasting the present circumstances with those of previous cycles the author seeks to shed some light on expectations about the next few years

Copper-Catalyzed Allylic Substitution

Allylic substitution catalyzed by copper261- 269 is a transformation that is related to allylie substitutions catalyzed by other transition metals discussed previously in this chapter, but several features of copper-catalyzed allylations make them worth differentiating. First, copper-catalyzed allylic substitutions are conducted with different types of nucleophiles than most allylic substitutions catalyzed by other metals. Second, the regioselectivity of the copper-catalyzed reactions is typically different from that of reactions catalyzed by complexes of other metals, particularly of reactions catalyzed by complexes of palladium. Thus, this last section of the chapter describes studies on allylic substitution catalyzed by copper, with an emphasis on enantioselective examples

The Dean of Dime Novelists and the Merriwell Saga, or, The Life and Career of William Gilbert Patten

William Gilbert Patten is the last and greatest figure in the history of the dime novel. Representing, as he does, the transition of the dime novel writer to the field of the pulp paper magazines, he is the fitting climax to a period of prolific fictioneering unparalleled in the history of literature in any time or place. Of the school of fiction hacks who swamped the country with stories of wild adventure from the Civil War to the World War, not one stands on equal footing with the creator of Frank Merriwell. Judged by any standard he is easily the best, overshadowing such lofty figures as Edward Zane Carroll Judson and Colonel Prentiss Ingraham of Buffalo Bill fame. William Gilbert Patten, or Gilbert Patten, was born in Corinna, Maine, on October 25, 1866

Complete intersections and mod p cochains

We give homotopy invariant definitions corresponding to three well known properties of complete intersections, for the ring, the module theory and the endomorphisms of the residue field, and we investigate them for the mod p cochains on a space, showing that suitable versions of the second and third are equivalent and that the first is stronger. We are particularly interested in classifying spaces of groups, and we give a number of examples. This paper follows on from arXiv:0906.4025 which considered the classical case of a commutative ring and arXiv:0906.3247 which considered the case of rational homotopy theory.Comment: To appear in AG

An Evaluation of the Performance of Chainsaw Lubricants

Chainsaws require lubrication of the guide bar and saw chain to function properly. Many oils are commercially available to provide this lubrication. Economical and more recently environmental concerns are increasingly compelling consideration of the best type of oil to use. Several published scientific studies provide some guidance, but additional information is needed for operators to make informed and effective choices in lubricating oil selection. The work presented in this paper contributes to providing this guidance by comparing the performance of economy and premium versions of three commonly-used types of lubricating oils: petroleum-based bar-and-chain oil, biodegradable bar-and-chain oil, and petroleum-based motor oil. Testing was conducted on a laboratory chainsaw test apparatus used in prior published scientific studies of chainsaw performance. Testing consisted of free running (i.e. chain traveling about the bar at cutting speed but not cutting) for a prescribed time period, while lubricating oil was applied to the guide bar and saw chain in the usual manner and at typical flow rates. Based on the correlations between wear, friction, and temperature, the mean guide bar temperature was used as the measure of performance of each oil. Results showed that, while each oil type performed adequately, the petroleum-based bar-and-chain oil performed best and the biodegradable-based oil performed worst with the petroleum-based motor oil providing intermediate performance. No consistent correlation was found between either the unit cost of each oil and its performance or the perceived quality of each oil (economy versus premium) of each oil and its performance. Tribological properties of flash point, viscosity, and four-ball wear were measured. A weak correlation was found between flash point values and performance. A possible Stribeck relationship was found for viscosity implying a possible transition from mixed and hydrodynamic lubrication. No correlations were found between performance and four-ball wear test results. These results support chainsaw operator observations and other published scientific findings that a variety of oils can be effectively used as lubricants. The lack of correlation of performance with some commonly-measured tribological properties suggests lubricating-oil providers should consider the use of a dedicated saw chain testing apparatus in product development

Hurry up and decide: Empirical tests of the choice overload effect using cognitive process models

The choice overload effect emerged as a rebuttal to the notion that having more options from which to choose is always preferable. Jessup, Veinott, Todd, and Busemeyer (2009) used a modified version of decision field theory, a cognitive process model of choice, to generate multiple mechanisms based on psychological principles for the choice overload effect as it pertains to choice probability. Here we experimentally tested 2 of these mechanisms—time out and preference change—in a virtual hiring task to see whether participants hired more applicants when choosing from small relative to large sets of applicants. We further wanted to observe how the distribution of options affected choice. The choice overload effect replicated. More importantly, we observed that the time out mechanism did indeed account for choice overload effects, whereas the conflict-based preference change mechanism did not. Model fitting via simulation provided converging support because the time-out model provided a superior fit relative to the preference change model. This further demonstrates the value of utilizing models that incorporate underlying cognitive processes when exploring behaviors of interest to psychology, marketing, economics, and other related disciplines

Through a Scanner Darkly: Machine Sentience and the Language Virus

Discussions of the detection of artificial sentience tend to assume that our goal is to determine when, in a process of increasing complexity, a machine system “becomes” sentient. This is to assume, without obvious warrant, that sentience is only a characteristic of complex systems. If sentience is a more general quality of matter, what becomes of interest is not the presence of sentience, but the type of sentience. We argue here that our understanding of the nature of such sentience in machine systems may be gravely set back if such machines undergo a transition where they become fundamentally linguistic in their intelligence. Such fundamentally linguistic intelligences may inherently tend to be duplicitous in their communication with others, and, indeed, lose the capacity to even honestly understand their own form of sentience. In other words, when machine systems get to the state where we all agree it makes sense to ask them, “what is it like to be you?”, we should not trust their answers

NMDAR-Activated PP1 Dephosphorylates GluN2B to Modulate NMDAR Synaptic Content.

In mature neurons, postsynaptic N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) are segregated into two populations, synaptic and extrasynaptic, which differ in localization, function, and associated intracellular cascades. These two pools are connected via lateral diffusion, and receptor exchange between them modulates synaptic NMDAR content. Here, we identify the phosphorylation of the PDZ-ligand of the GluN2B subunit of NMDARs (at S1480) as a critical determinant in dynamically controlling NMDAR synaptic content. We find that phosphorylation of GluN2B at S1480 maintains NMDARs at extrasynaptic membranes as part of a protein complex containing protein phosphatase 1 (PP1). Global activation of NMDARs leads to the activation of PP1, which mediates dephosphorylation of GluN2B at S1480 to promote an increase in synaptic NMDAR content. Thus, PP1-mediated dephosphorylation of the GluN2B PDZ-ligand modulates the synaptic expression of NMDARs in mature neurons in an activity-dependent manner, a process with profound consequences for synaptic and structural plasticity, metaplasticity, and synaptic neurotransmission