Drunk Person Screening using Eye Thermal Signatures

Temperature distribution on the eyes of drunk persons is studied by means of thermal infrared images. The sclera and the iris are of the same temperature for the sober person, while for the intoxicated person, the sclera temperature increases. Consequently, only the thermal images from the drunk persons are necessary for intoxication screening. Forty‐one participants drank in a controlled alcohol consumption procedure. Their breath alcohol concentration was above the threshold of 0.2 mg/L of exhaled air, which corresponds to about 0.5 mg of alcohol per cubic centimeter of blood. Histogram modification algorithms were employed to prove that for 36 among the 41 intoxicated persons, the sclera becomes hotter. The Student t‐test verified with over 99% confidence the drunk discrimination capabilities of the procedure. The forensic science potential contribution of the method is that face infrared imagery is available to the authorities for supporting intoxication in case of criminal actions.     

Negotiating Durable Solutions for Refugees: A Critical Space for Semiotic Analysis

Despite the proliferation of specialised agencies designed to reduce the prevalence of refugees worldwide, the number of individuals fleeing persecution is increasing year on year as endemic violence in countries such as Iraq, Somalia and the Syrian Arab Republic continues. As a result, media broadcasts and political dialogues are saturated with discussions about these “persons of concern”. Fundamental questions nonetheless remain unanswered about what meaning these actors attribute to the label ‘refugee’ and what intent, other than paucity of knowledge, might be driving the term’s use or manipulation. Though this is evidently important in the public arena, where incorrect conflations fuel mistrust and misunderstandings, the ramifications of these divergent understandings at the level of multi-lateral politics have yet to be critically explored. This article applies Barthes’ theory of the multiple orders of the sign to address this. Using the case study of the negotiations preceding the invocation of the Cessation Clause for Rwandan refugees, it illustrates how the word refugee is susceptible to numerous, simultaneous understandings, and discusses the implications of these manifold interpretations for how durable solutions are envisaged and negotiated in the refugee regime. In the case of Rwandan refugees in Uganda, this has meant that over a decade of stalemated discussions between the Governments of Uganda and Rwanda and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees over their future have been broken by a series of bilateral concessions that, whilst diminishing the political significance attached to this protracted caseload, have failed to address the continuing precarity of their situation. By conceptualising the word refugee as a sign according to the Saussurean model of semiotics, this paper therefore argues that despite the term’s established legal-normative definition, its inherent malleability makes it susceptible to processes of political instrumentalisation. This elevates the refugee as a rhetorical figure above the refugee as a physical-legal body entitled to certain forms of assistance.     

Order in the Piazzi case

University Health Services, Inc. petitioned the Superior Court of Richmond County, Georgia, for an order to maintain life support systems for Donna Piazzi, a brain dead patient, to preserve the life of her quickened, nonviable fetus until the point of delivery with a reasonable chance of survival. Robert Piazzi, the husband, requested termination of support. The guardian ad litem of the fetus and David Haddon, the putative father, requested maintenance of support. The Division of Family and Children Services argued that the Court lacked jurisdiction. The Court concluded that, based on case law and on Georgia statutes, only the mother has the right to terminate a quickened, nonviable fetus and that public policy requires the maintenance of life support systems for a brain dead mother as long as there exists a reasonable possibility that the fetus may develop and survive.     

Institutional Context, Cognitive Resources and Party Attachments Across Democracies

e-mail: jdh39{at}columbia.edu e-mail: gck2001{at}columbia.edu e-mail: ell2002{at}columbia.edu This paper develops and tests arguments about how national-levelsocial and institutional factors shape the propensity of individualsto form attachments to political parties. Our tests employ atwo-step estimation procedure that has attractive propertieswhen there is a binary dependent variable in the first stageand when the number of second-level units is relatively small.We find that voters are most likely to form party attachmentswhen group identities are salient and complimentary. We alsofind that institutions that assist voters in retrospectivelyevaluating parties—specifically, strong party disciplineand few parties in government—increase partisanship. Theseinstitutions matter most for those individuals with the fewestcognitive resources, measured here by education.