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

Deterministic Small-World Networks

Many real life networks, such as the World Wide Web, transportation systems, biological or social networks, achieve both a strong local clustering (nodes have many mutual neighbors) and a small diameter (maximum distance between any two nodes). These networks have been characterized as small-world networks and modeled by the addition of randomness to regular structures. We show that small-world networks can be constructed in a deterministic way. This exact approach permits a direct calculation of relevant network parameters allowing their immediate contrast with real-world networks and avoiding complex computer simulations.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur

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

Cascade Dynamics of Multiplex Propagation

Random links between otherwise distant nodes can greatly facilitate the propagation of disease or information, provided contagion can be transmitted by a single active node. However we show that when the propagation requires simultaneous exposure to multiple sources of activation, called multiplex propagation, the effect of random links is just the opposite: it makes the propagation more difficult to achieve. We calculate analytical and numerically critical points for a threshold model in several classes of complex networks, including an empirical social network.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, for similar work visit http://hsd.soc.cornell.edu and http://www.imedea.uib.es/physdep

Impact of the earthworm Lumbricus terrestris (L.) on As, Cu, Pb and Zn mobility and speciation in contaminated soils

To assess the risks that contaminated soils pose to the environment properly a greater understanding of how soil biota influence the mobility of metal(loid)s in soils is required. Lumbricus terrestris L. were incubated in three soils contaminated with As, Cu, Pb and Zn. The concentration and speciation of metal(loid)s in pore waters and the mobility and partitioning in casts were compared with earthworm-free soil. Generally the concentrations of water extractable metal(loid)s in earthworm casts were greater than in earthworm-free soil. The impact of the earthworms on concentration and speciation in pore waters was soil and metal specific and could be explained either by earthworm induced changes in soil pH or soluble organic carbon. The mobilisation of metal(loid)s in the environment by earthworm activity may allow for leaching or uptake into biota

Using MLP to determine abiotic factors influencing the establishment of insect pest species

The use of multi-layer perceptrons (MLP) to determine the significance of climatic variables to the establishment of insect pest species is described. Results show that the MLP are able to learn to accurately predict the establishment of a pest species within a specific geographic region. Analysis of the MLP yielded insights into the contribution of the individual input variables and allowed for the identification of those variables that were most significant in either encouraging or inhibiting establishment

DATAMAP upgrade version 4.0

The changes made on the data analysis and management program DATAMAP (Data from Aeromechanics Test and Analytics - Management and Analysis Package) are detailed. These changes are made to Version 3.07 (released February, 1981) and are called Version 4.0. Version 4.0 improvements were performed by Sterling Software under contract to NASA Ames Research Center. The increased capabilities instituted in this version include the breakout of the source code into modules for ease of modification, addition of a more accurate curve fit routine, ability to handle higher frequency data, additional data analysis features, and improvements in the functionality of existing features. These modification will allow DATAMAP to be used on more data sets and will make future modifications and additions easier to implement