The Biggest Peace: The Structure of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Politics of Separation

Part I of this Note summarizes the background leading up to the signing of the Oslo Accords. Part II details the overall structure and responsibilities laid out in Oslo II, with specific emphasis on the legal. Also, Part II presents for comparison the semi-autonomy arrangement devised and implemented in the Transkei of South Africa in the early 1960s. Part II concludes by examining the extent to which both of these arrangements were successful in satisfying the parties involved and makes some more general comparisons to similar reactions in Northern Ireland following the Good Friday Agreement. Part III attempts to draw conclusions on the effectiveness of limited autonomy to deal with the competing rhetoric of self-determination and the administration of viable political entities

Impact of improved systems on rice and common carp Cyprinus carpio multitrophic tropical aquaculture, Antananarivo, Madagascar

Flooded rice fields are ecosystems favorable to the growth and production of many aquatic organisms. They can even play a major role in the feeding and nutrition of local communities, as a source of self-recruiting species or by supporting the production of farmed fish in association with rice. In Madagascar, integrated rice-fish aquaculture systems are a 150+ years-old tradition. The initial species was goldfish Carassius auratus, locally known as Trondro gasy (meaning, “the Malagasy fish”) but now, the common carp (Cyprinus carpio) took over as the main produced species, sometimes in polyculture with tilapia. Although traditional, the technology has recently been improved by several organizations (FAO, APDRA) by building larger and higher side dykes and digging a canal in the middle of the field, which serves as a refuge area for fish when the field is drained. However, this also implies an approximate 10% loss of space for rice production, a basic food commodity for local populations, which is supposedly compensated by higher rice productivity in integrated system. The first aim of this farm experiment was therefore to assess the productivity of these systems by characterizing the importance of the different trophic compartments in traditional (rice + self recruiting species) and integrated systems (rice+carps improved systems, Fig. 1). However, nutrient availability can be a limiting factor, as feed and fertilizers are expensive. Trophic deadlocks can then be suspected in iron-rich areas due to phosphorous chelation in sediments. As common carp is a detritivore/omnivore fast-growing species which trophic behavior (bioturbation) involves re-suspending sediments, it is expected that its introduction in inundated rice field will improve nutrient availability and increase rice and fish production. The second scientific question is then focused on determining the nutrient pathways and deadlocks, and how they impact the common carp, rice and fish production. (Résumé d'auteur

Technological characteristics of 245 tropical and temperate timbers species

Developed by the Cirad's "Mediterranean and Tropical Forest Products Research Unit", the new release of TROPIX software (version 7) presents the main characteristics of 245 tropical or temperate wood species. For each species, TROPIX provides data and information on: the scientific and local names of the species described, their origins (distribution maps) and any commercial restriction according to the CITES regulation; appearance of the log or wood, including pictures of wood and wood utilisations; leading physical and mechanical properties; natural durability against fungi / dry wood borers / termites, and preservation; drying behaviour, including a drying schedule given for information; processing behaviour (sawing, machining, assembling); appearance grading and visual grading for structural applications; actual and potential uses and reaction to fire. Some of this information is displayed in graphical format. TROPIX 7 allows multicriteria search using preselected search terms or similarity to a different species. It also allows graphical species comparisons based on one or two physical or mechanical properties. Multicriteria searches results, graphics and technical sheets can be printed or exported as files. (Résumé d'auteur

Judicial Disclosure and the Judicial Mystique

Judges in the American legal system are expected to be neutral. To this end, judges are required to recuse themselves whenever their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. Yet, this requirement is by and large designed to be self-policed. This self-policing structure is a deviation from the ordinary presumptions of adversarial litigation, not the least because it depends upon the presumption that judges are disinterested about whether they are improperly interested. To compensate for this, a robust body of common law has developed that requires judges to disclose facts about themselves that might affect their neutrality, even if they do not believe that reclusal is required. The nature of judicial disclosure obligations is surprisingly under-theorized both in the case law and the scholarly literature. The case law, especially, has been prone to ground the bases and limits of judges\u27 disclosure obligations on formalistic and often quite specious arguments that, this essay concludes, tend to reach a defensible result for misguided and often contradictory reasons. This essay further concludes that the extent of a judicial actor\u27s disclosure requirements tend to be inversely correlated with the durability of their judicial status. The more robust a judicial actor\u27s claim to judicial status, the more the judicial actor is protected from disclosure by what I call the judicial mystique, the presumption that the judge is the mere embodiment of rules governed state power and may therefore be interchanged with any other judge without an appreciable effect on the outcome of any given case. Hence, Supreme Court judges disclose very little about themselves, whereas arbitrators are subject to exceptionally rigorous disclosure obligations. This essay then considers the peculiar place of military judges along this continuum and offers a close reading of the D.C. Circuit\u27s decision in In re Al-Nashiri, 921 F.3d 224 (D.C. Cir. 2019), which vacated the rulings of a military judge, in part, because of his failure to dlsclose the extent to which he was seeking post-retirement employment from the Department of Justice in a high-profile case

A qualitative study of a psychiatric emergency

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Is psychiatric emergency service (PES) use increasing over time?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Several recent studies have reported a significant increase in medical emergency department (ED) use for reasons of mental health. The diagnostic profile of these patients however differs from that usually described for patients visiting the psychiatric emergency service (PES). Few studies have specifically focused upon long-term PES utilization rates. Those that do typically present data from the early 80s, suggesting that deinstitutionalization may be an important contributing factor to the increases found. The aim of this study was to assess PES use using a more recent time frame and, the effects of non-specific factors, such as population growth, on this use.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Visits per year at several different types of PESs were obtained; (a) for an 11-year period at a general hospital PES while the surrounding population remained stable, (b) at that same PES while the catchment area population doubled over a period of a few years, (c) for an 11-year period at two PESs without catchment areas while the surrounding population increased and (d-) for a 12-year period at a PES in a mental health facility while the surrounding population increased. Moderately conservative criteria were used to define either a trend or, a significant increase in utilization rates.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Each site had an inherent, 7 to 15% yearly variability in the number of PES visits. Over time however, only those where the surrounding population increased (either by an increase in the catchment area size or a regional increase in the population census) showed a trend or, a significant increase in utilization rates. These increases however were modest and of the order of 12 to 19%.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Long observation periods are required in order to detect stable changes in PES utilization rates over time. As such, population growth may be but one of several factors underlying these increases. Organizational changes in mental health care delivery in the vicinity of the services that showed an increase could also have contributed. These latter would simply have redistributed (to the PES) the pre existing pool of mental health care patients, resulting in an increase that is more apparent than real.</p

AMI-LA radio continuum observations of Spitzer c2d small clouds and cores: Perseus region

We present deep radio continuum observations of the cores identified as deeply embedded young stellar objects in the Perseus molecular cloud by the Spitzer c2d programme at a wavelength of 1.8 cm with the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager Large Array (AMI-LA). We detect 72% of Class 0 objects from this sample and 31% of Class I objects. No starless cores are detected. We use the flux densities measured from these data to improve constraints on the correlations between radio luminosity and bolometric luminosity, infrared luminosity and, where measured, outflow force. We discuss the differing behaviour of these objects as a function of protostellar class and investigate the differences in radio emission as a function of core mass. Two of four possible very low luminosity objects (VeLLOs) are detected at 1.8 cm.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, accepted MNRA

The principles of communicative language use

The paper aims to overview some typical principles of communicative language use in a cognitive pragmatic approach applying a reductionist method in order to demonstrate that the well-known principles can be reduced to a very general rationality (economy) principle. After briefly reviewing the principles the paper re-evaluates them and provides a new classification of them relying on the definition of ostensive-inferential communication. The principles which can be divided into rationality and interpersonality principles are really principles of effective information transmission on objects and selves. They refer to two kinds of language use: informative and communicative ones. The only principles valid for only communicative language use are the communicative principle of relevance and the principle of communicative intention suggested in the present article. Finally, the paper reduces all rationality and interpersonality principles to a very general rationality principle, i.e., the cognitive principle of relevance

A feasibility study of a new computerised cognitive remediation for young adults with schizophrenia

Cognitive remediation therapy is effective for improving cognition, symptoms and social functioning in individuals with schizophrenia; however, the impact on visual episodic memory remains unclear. The objectives of this feasibility study were: (1) to explore whether or not CIRCuiTS—a new computerised cognitive remediation therapy programme developed in England—improves visual episodic memory and other cognitive domains in young adults with early course schizophrenia; and (2) to evaluate acceptability of the CIRCuiTS programme in French-Canadians. Three participants with visual episodic memory impairments at baseline were recruited from clinical settings in Canada, and consented to participate. Neuropsychological, clinical and social functioning was evaluated at baseline and post-treatment. Intervention involved 40 sessions of cognitive remediation. First, the reliable change index (RCI) revealed that each participant demonstrated significant post-therapy change in episodic memory and in other cognitive domains. The response profile was characterised by the use of organisational strategies. Second, the treatment was considered acceptable to participants in terms of session frequency (number of sessions per week), intensity (hours per week; total hours), and number of missed sessions and total completed sessions. This preliminary study yielded encouraging data demonstrating the feasibility of the CIRCuiTS programme in French-Canadian young adults with schizophrenia.</p