拉美左派领导人代表乌戈·查韦斯

委内瑞拉总统乌戈·查韦斯(Hugo Chavez)近年来因激进的反美、反新自由主义的言行在拉美政坛上声名鹊起,成为拉美左派领导人的代表,也日益受到西方国家的关注。西方舆论认为,查韦斯以顺应民主时代的方式,重新确立了“查韦斯式的专制主义”,并带动拉美地区形成左派政治气候。随着今年几个拉美国家包括墨西哥、巴西将陆续进行选     

Human Rights and Modern Liberalism: a Critique

The idea of human rights has become one of the central moral notions of both the theory and practice of international politics. While its foundation and future in the practice of politics looks bright, it is an idea that still causes great trouble at the theoretical level. What are human rights? Why do we have them? To what should we attribute the authority of their moral claims? The theorist Michael Freeman has suggested one theory that by addressing such questions may serve as a foundation for human rights. His theory, however, ends by begging the questions it set out to answer.     

Spatial variation of refractive index in a pane of float glass.

In the statistical interpretation of forensic glass evidence it is standard practice to make the assumption of homogeneity of the refractive index (RI) of the source glass, or of localized homogeneity. However, the work of Locke and Hayes showed that, for toughened windscreen glass, this assumption might not be true. This work is well cited, but there appears to have been little follow-on published research. Furthermore, the toughening process is something known to affect the refractive index, and is a process that float glass does not undergo. Float glass is a major component of casework in New Zealand and for that reason it would be interesting to know whether the findings of Locke and Hayes apply when dealing with float glass. In this paper we describe an experiment similar to that of Locke and Hayes, systematically examining the variation of RI in a pane of float window glass. It was found that, although there were no systematic differences in refractive index, there were observable differences across the pane.