No description available.

Compacted shales cause problems because they tend to degrade with time due to weathering. Degradation results in the shale deteriorating from a hard rock-like material to a soft fine-grained soil mass with lower shear strength and high deformability. Consequently, common problems that occur in embankments constructed with compacted shales include settlement and instabilities. Therefore, accelerating weathering prior to compaction by wetting and breaking down the shales before placement can reduce the deterioration during the service life of the construction. Extensive laboratory testing was performed in order to characterize the mechanical behavior of compacted shales. Critical State theory is a clever framework that describes the mechanical behavior of soils with a simple system of equations that explains all the aspects of compression and shear of soils. NorSand is a model constructed in the framework of the Critical State theory that decouples the yield loci from the normally consolidated line. This characteristic made this model suitable for compacted shales. Also, empirical evidence showed that the plastic behavior of compacted shales is controlled by a Nova type flow rule that is a function of the mineralogical characteristics of the shales. This finding has implications in the shape of the yield loci and the hardening rule.

Background - Current guidelines suggest that all cancer patients with venous thrombosis be treated with long-term low molecular weight heparin. Whether treatment strategies should vary according to clinical characteristics remains unknown. // Systematic review - A systematic review was performed to determine current understanding of the association between malignancy characteristics in patients with cancer-associated VTE and the risk of VTE recurrence. Four retrospective and 6 prospective studies were included. They suggest that lung cancer, metastases, and adenocarcinomas confer an increased the risk of recurrence and breast cancer a low risk. // Survey - I performed survey to evaluate thrombosis experts’ opinion about the low risk of VTE recurrence they would consider acceptable for patients with cancer- associated thrombosis 103 specialists participated. 80% of respondents agreed that a risk of recurrent VTE during anticoagulation below 7% is low enough. 92% agreed that a CPR that categorizes risk of recurrence is relevant. // Retrospective Study - I performed a single retrospective cohort study to assess the feasibility of derivation of a CPR that stratifies VTE recurrence risk in patients with cancer–associated thrombosis. The study included 543 patients. A multivariate analysis selected female, lung cancer and prior history of VTE as high risk predictors and breast cancer and stage I disease as low risk. // Conclusion - Patients with cancer-associated thrombosis do have varying risks of recurrent VTE depending on clinical characteristics.

This project set out to derive a prediction rule based on preoperative clinical variables to identify patients with high risk of developing atrial fibrillation following cardiac surgery. Methods: Prospectively collected data from a perioperative database was corroborated with chart review to identify eligible patients who had non-emergent surgery in 2010. Details on 28 preoperative variables were collected and significant predictors (p<0.2) were inserted into multivariable logistic regression and recursive partitioning. Results: 305 (30.5%) of 999 patients developed new onset postoperative atrial fibrillation. Eleven variables were significantly associated with atrial fibrillation, however, both final models included only three: left atrial dilatation, mitral valve disease and age. Bootstrapping with 5000 samples confirmed that both final models provide consistent predictions. Coefficients from the logistic regression model were converted into a simple seven point predictive score. Conclusions: This simple risk score can identify patients at higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation after cardiac surgery.

This Master of Laws thesis provides an analysis of Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench civil money judgment cases, sampled quantitatively for 1995 and 2004, to examine the length of time from the filing of a claim to judgment being issued, before and after the implementation of Manitoba Queen s Bench Rule 20A. The historical roots of Manitoba court procedure and certain enforcement processes are examined to explain historically: if you get the judgment, how do you get the money? The procedural law is rooted in the English medieval common law system of judicial writs, most recently made more efficient by Manitoba Queen s Bench Rule 20A. This remains basic to issues of law reform for all common law jurisdictions, including Saskatchewan s Enforcement of Money Judgments Act, and this thesis concludes with a set of qualitative recommendations.

This thesis explores the relationship between international war crimes tribunals and peacebuilding in post-conflict societies. The aim of the present study was to examine how the role and function of international tribunals has changed since the establishment of the Nuremberg tribunal in the early years after World War II. Due to the evolving nature of international law and the international criminal legal system, international tribunals have become increasingly recognized as an integral component of peacebuilding processes in the aftermath of conflict. As the first international tribunal mandated to restore international peace and security, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) set a new precedent for international tribunals. Beginning with its establishment, there appeared to be a new trend of using international judicial mechanisms to promote peace and reconciliation in the aftermath of conflict. One important element of change was the increased tendency of international tribunals to engage in public outreach and help build the capacity of national justice sector institutions. As the first international tribunal to succeed the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals and the first UN tribunal of its kind, the ICTY has shown the extent to which international tribunals facilitate societal reconciliation is, and will be, understood within the context of the legacies they leave behind. Institutions such as the ICTY will not be judged solely on the merits of the ideals on which they were established, but instead on their concrete successes in the domestic arena and their ability to fortify domestic judicial capacity.

This thesis addresses how government in Rwanda plays out in practice and how it affects lived experiences of state power and citizenship. Two decades after the genocide, Rwanda has come to be associated both with security, development, and stability, on the one hand, and with state repression and coercion, on the other. In 2007, a nationwide programme was launched to teach all Rwandans about the politically dominant vision of the model Rwandan citizen – an ideal that is today pursued through remote trainings camps, local village trainings, and everyday forms of government. The thesis is based on ten months of anthropological research in Rwanda, oriented around three ethnographic spaces: the life and workings of the Itorero training sites, the voices of two dozen Rwandans living in Kigali, and the daily government of a local neighbourhood in Kigali. The findings highlight how certain government practices in Rwanda engender in people experiences of being exposed to the state’s power and violent potential. As such, they represent an authoritarian mode of rule, reproduced through the way experiences of exposure guide everyday actions and behaviour vis-à-vis the state. The thesis starts from the Foucauldian assumption that all relations of power depend on the acceptance and agency of both those holding power and those who relate to themselves as their subjects. In Rwanda, the terms of acceptance are partly grounded in local social realities. Personal memories of mass violence, for example, justify for many the state’s tight social control. Such memories are also actively nurtured by the government itself, by associating the loosening of state control with the risk of renewed violence. Furthermore, in light of Rwanda’s attraction of foreign aid, authoritarian rule needs to be understood in relation to international terms of acceptance, which are embedded in liberal understandings of good, or at least good enough, governance.

No description available.

This study analyses the way that legal positivists from HLA Hart onwards have responded to Lon L Fuller&rsquo;s challenge to positivism from the idea of the rule of law. The main thesis is that Hart and contemporary legal positivists working in the Hartian tradition have yet to adequately respond to Fuller&rsquo;s Challenge. I argue that the reason for this is the approach they take to dealing with Fuller&rsquo;s principles of the rule of law, which either (i) proceeds on the basis of the positivist perspective without engaging with Fuller&rsquo;s wider anti-positivist arguments, or else (ii) accepts Fuller&rsquo;s claim that the rule of law is part of our concept of law but does not acknowledge any effect of this on what determines legal validity (the content of legal norms). In both cases, I argue that tensions and problems result from a lack of engagement with Fuller&rsquo;s anti-positivism. On the one hand, positivists have failed to show why their account of the nature of law better reflects our understanding of law than Fuller&rsquo;s. On the other, the concessions that positivists have made to Fuller&rsquo;s arguments are often detached from other elements in their theories, raising the question of whether the positivist response to Fuller is coherent. In addition, by closely analysing the major positivist accounts of the rule of law, this study challenges a number of orthodox interpretations that confuse our understanding of the positivist response to Fuller. I show that most positivists accept that there is something morally valuable about a legal system&rsquo;s conformity to the principles of the rule of law, and that there is always some kind of at least minimal conformity to those principles in any legal system. By noticing what concessions positivists have made to Fuller&rsquo;s understanding of the rule of law, I aim to both (i) shift the debate to the remaining disputes with the Hartian positivists, particularly on issues such as the &lsquo;derivative approach&rsquo; and the &lsquo;validity Social thesis&rsquo;, and (ii) identify areas of fruitful engagement with Fuller, such as the question of judges&rsquo; moral obligations to law.

This study analyses the way that legal positivists from HLA Hart onwards have responded to Lon L Fuller&rsquo;s challenge to positivism from the idea of the rule of law. The main thesis is that Hart and contemporary legal positivists working in the Hartian tradition have yet to adequately respond to Fuller&rsquo;s Challenge. I argue that the reason for this is the approach they take to dealing with Fuller&rsquo;s principles of the rule of law, which either (i) proceeds on the basis of the positivist perspective without engaging with Fuller&rsquo;s wider anti-positivist arguments, or else (ii) accepts Fuller&rsquo;s claim that the rule of law is part of our concept of law but does not acknowledge any effect of this on what determines legal validity (the content of legal norms). In both cases, I argue that tensions and problems result from a lack of engagement with Fuller&rsquo;s anti-positivism. On the one hand, positivists have failed to show why their account of the nature of law better reflects our understanding of law than Fuller&rsquo;s. On the other, the concessions that positivists have made to Fuller&rsquo;s arguments are often detached from other elements in their theories, raising the question of whether the positivist response to Fuller is coherent. In addition, by closely analysing the major positivist accounts of the rule of law, this study challenges a number of orthodox interpretations that confuse our understanding of the positivist response to Fuller. I show that most positivists accept that there is something morally valuable about a legal system&rsquo;s conformity to the principles of the rule of law, and that there is always some kind of at least minimal conformity to those principles in any legal system. By noticing what concessions positivists have made to Fuller&rsquo;s understanding of the rule of law, I aim to both (i) shift the debate to the remaining disputes with the Hartian positivists, particularly on issues such as the &lsquo;derivative approach&rsquo; and the &lsquo;validity Social thesis&rsquo;, and (ii) identify areas of fruitful engagement with Fuller, such as the question of judges&rsquo; moral obligations to law.