text:
\section{Introduction}

Dialogue State Tracking (DST) is utilized by the dialogue system to track dialogue-related constraints and user's requests in the dialogue context. Traditional dialogue state tracking models combine semantics extracted by language understanding modules to estimate the current dialogue states \citep{williams2007partially,thomson2010bayesian,wang2013simple,williams2014web}, or to jointly learn speech understanding \citep{henderson2014word,zilka2015incremental,wen2016network}.
They rely on hand-crafted features and complex domain-specific lexicons, which are vulnerable to linguistic variations and difficult to scale. Recently proposed approaches attempt to automatically learn features from the dialogue context and the previous dialogue states. Most of them utilize only the context \citep{shan2020contextual} or encode the concatenation of context and dialogue states \citep{hosseini2020simple} or utilize a simple attention mechanism to merge the information from the above two sources \citep{ouyang2020dialogue}. These methods do not fully exploit the nature of the information in the context and the predicted dialogue states. The information nature of the context is complete and may be indirect. While the nature of the predicted dialogue states is direct and may be incomplete or erroneous.

\begin{table}
\small
\begin{tabular}{l}
\hline
$U_{1}$: I need a place to dine in the centre.\\
\textbf{State:} restaurant-area=centre\\
\hline
$S_{2}$:I recommend the rice house. Would you like me \\to reserve a table?\\
$U_{2}$:Yes, please book me a table for 9.\\
\textbf{State:} restaurant-area=centre; restaurant-book people=9; \\\textit{restaurant-name=rice house}\\
\hline
$S_{3}$:Unfortunately, I could not book the rice house for that\\ amount of people.\\
$U_{3}$: please find another restaurant for that amount of\\ people at that time. \\
\textbf{State:} restaurant-area=centre;
restaurant-book people=9\\\textit{restaurant-name=none}\\
\hline
$S_{4}$: how about tang restaurant ?\\
$U_{4}$: Yes, please make me a reservation. I also need \\a taxi.\\
\textbf{State:} restaurant-area=centre; restaurant-book people=9\\
\textit{restaurant-name=tang};\\
\hline
$S_{5}$: What is your destination ?\\
$U_{5}$: To the restaurant.\\
\textbf{State:} restaurant-area=centre; restaurant-book people=9\\
\textit{restaurant-name=tang}; \textit{taxi-destination=tang}\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\caption{\label{dialogue_example} An example of dialogue contains (1) the \emph{deleted-value problem} at the $3^{rd}$ turn, which changes restaurant-name from rice house to none, and (2) the \emph{related-slot phenomenon} at the $5^{th}$ turn, which carries over the value from restaurant-name to taxi-destination.}
\end{table}

Our FPDSC model exploits the interaction among the turn utterance, the corresponding last dialogue states, and dialogue slots at each turn. A fusion gate (the turn-level fusion gate) is trained to balance the keep-proportion of the slot-related information from the turn utterance and the corresponding last dialogue states at each turn. Then it applies a hierarchical structure to keep the complete information of all dialogue turns. On top of the model, we employ another fusion gate (the passage-level fusion gate) to strengthen the impact of the last dialogue states. \citet{ouyang2020dialogue} shows that such strengthening is vital to solve the related-slot problem. The problem is explained in Table \ref{dialogue_example}. To eliminate the negative impact of the error in the predicted dialogue states, we train our models in two phases. In the teacher-forcing phase, previous dialogue states are all true labels. While in the uniform scheduled sampling phase \citep{bengio2015scheduled}, previous dialogue states are half predicted dialogue states and half true labels. Training with such natural data noise from the error in the predicted dialogue states helps improve the model's robustness.

 For ablation studies, we test the following variants of FPDSC: base model (without turn/passage-level fusion gates), turn-level model (with only turn-level fusion gate), passage-level model (with only passage-level fusion gate) and dual-level model (with both turn/passage-level fusion gates). We also conduct the experiment for the deleted-value problem, which is explained in Table \ref{dialogue_example}, and the related-slot problem. Besides, we design two comparative networks to validate the effectiveness of the turn-level fusion gate and the whole previous dialogue states. One comparative network employs only the attention mechanism to merge information from the turn utterance, the corresponding last dialogue states, and dialogue slots at each turn. Another comparative network utilize only the last previous dialogue states in the turn-level fusion gate. Our model shows strong performance on MultiWOZ 2.0 \citep{budzianowski2018multiwoz} and MultiWOZ 2.1 \citep{eric2019multiwoz} datasets. Our main contributions are as follows:

\begin{itemize}
\item We propose a novel model, which utilizes multi-level fusion gates and the attention mechanism to extract the slot-related information from the conversation and previous dialogue states. The experimental results of two comparative networks validate the effectiveness of the turn-level fusion gate to merge information and the importance of the whole previous dialogue states to improve DST performance.

\item Both turn/passage-level fusion between the context and the last dialogue states helps at improving the model's inference ability. The passage-level fusion gate on the top of the model is more efficient than the turn-level fusion gate on the root for slot correlation problem. While the turn-level fusion gate is sensitive to signal tokens in the utterance, which helps improve the general DST performance.

\item Experimental results on the deleted-value and the related-slot experiment shows the ability of the structure to retrieve information. Besides, our models reach state-of-the-art performance on MultiWOZ 2.0/2.1 datasets.
\end{itemize}

\section{Related Work}
Recently proposed methods show promising progress in the challenge of DST. CHAN \citep{shan2020contextual} employs a contextual hierarchical attention network, which extracts slot attention based representation from the context in both token- and utterance-level. Benefiting from the hierarchical structure, CHAN can effectively keep the whole dialogue contextual information. Although CHAN achieves the new state-of-the-art performance on MultiWoz 2.0/2.1 datasets, it ignores the information from the predicted dialogue states. Figures \ref{chan-pdsc-1} and \ref{chan-pdsc-2}  show the difference between CHAN and FPDSC in the extraction of the slot-related information in one dialogue turn.

In the work of \citet{ouyang2020dialogue}, the problem of slot correlations across different domains is defined as related-slot problem. DST-SC \citep{ouyang2020dialogue} model is proposed. In the approach, the last dialogue states are vital to solve the related-slot problem. The method merges slot-utterance attention result and the last dialogue states with an attention mechanism. However, the general performance of DST-SC is worse than CHAN.

SOM-DST \citep{kim2019efficient} and CSFN-DST \citet{zhu2020efficient} utilize part of the context and the last dialogue states as information sources. The two methods are based on the assumption of Markov property in dialogues. They regard the last dialogue states as a compact representation of the whole dialogue history. Once a false prediction of a slot exists and the slot-related context is dropped, the dialogue states will keep the error.

\begin{figure}[t]
\includegraphics[width=4.8cm]{CHAN.pdf}
\centering
\caption{Part of CHAN and FPDSC (base/passage-level)}
\label{chan-pdsc-1}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}[t]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=6.8cm]{PDSC.pdf}
\caption{Part of FPDSC (turn/dual-level)}
\label{chan-pdsc-2}
\end{figure}

\section{Model}
\begin{figure*}[t]
\centering
\resizebox{1\linewidth}{!}{
\includegraphics[width=1\textwidth]{DST-DCPDS.pdf}}
\caption{The structure of \textbf{dual-level} FPDSC. The dialogue utterance at the $t$-th turn is [CLS]{$R_t$}[SEP]{$U_t$}[SEP]. The dialogue state is a list of slot-value pairs ([CLS]Slot$_1$[SEP]Value$_1$[SEP],$\dots$,[CLS]Slot$_n$[SEP]Value$_n$[SEP]). All slot values are none in the initial dialogue states. The \textbf{turn-level} approach is without Attention$\_4$ and the passage-level fusion gate ($g_t^{s,pl^{'}}$ is the output weight of the gate). The \textbf{passage-level} approach is without Attention$\_1$ and the turn-level fusion gate ($\{g_1^{s,tl},\cdots, g_{t-1}^{s,tl}, g_{t}^{s,tl}\}$ are the output weights of the gate). The \textbf{base} approach is without Attention$\_1/4$ and turn/passage-level fusion gate. The \textbf{base} approach has the same structure as CHAN with different early stop mechanism.}
\label{fig1}
\end{figure*}
Figure \ref{fig1} shows the overall structure of FPDSC (dual-level). The followings are important notations for our model.

\noindent
\textbf{Inputs:} The context {$D = \{(U_{1}, R_{1}), \dots, (U_{t}, R_{t})\}$} where $U_{t}$ and $R_{t}$ represent utterance for user and system at the $t$-th dialogue turn; The previous dialogue states $B = \{B_{1}, \dots ,B_{t-1}\}$ where $B_{t} = \{(s, v_{t}), s \in \mathcal{S}\}$, $\mathcal{S}$ is slot set, $s$ is one of the slot names, $v_{t}$ is the corresponding slot value at the $t$-th turn; $\mathcal{V} = \{{V_{s}, s \in \mathcal{S}}\}$ are slot value candidates of all slots .

\noindent
\textbf{Turn-level Information:} The slot-related information for each dialogue turn in Figure \ref{chan-pdsc-2} is the turn-level information.
 In Figure \ref{fig1}, the turn-level information is denoted as $\{m_1^{s,tl}, \dots, m_{t-1}^{s,tl}, m_{t}^{s,tl}\}$, which is the fusion (the turn-level fusion gate) result of the slot-utterance attention results $\{c_l^{s}, \dots, c_{t-1}^{s}, c_{t}^{s}\}$ and the slot-dialogue-states attention results $\{l_l^{s}, \dots, l_{t-1}^{s}, l_{t}^{s}\}$. The weights $\{g_1^{s,tl},\dots,g_{t-1}^{s,tl}, g_{t}^{s,tl} \}$ are from the same fusion gate, which is utilized to allocate the keep-proportion from the conversations and previous dialogue states. The turn-level information of a slot is fed to a transformer encoder to form the \textbf{mutual interaction information}  $\{h_{t,1}^{s,tl},\cdots, h_{t,t-1}^{s,tl}, h_{t,t}^{s,tl}\}$.

\noindent
\textbf{Passage-level Information:} The attention $\{\mathrm{Attention}\_{3}\}$ result of the \textbf{mutual interaction information} and a slot is the passage-level information $\{m_t^{s,pl}\}$ of a slot.

\noindent
\textbf{Core Feature:} The weight $\{g_t^{s,pl}\}$ are applied to balance the turn-level information of the current dialogue turn $\{m_t^{s,tl}\}$ and the passage-level information $\{m_t^{s,pl}\}$ of a slot. We employ the attention $\{\mathrm{Attention}\_{4}\}$ mechanism between the turn/passage-level balanced information $\{f_t^{s,pl}\}$ and the last dialogue states $\{h_t^{l}\}$ to strengthen the impact of the last dialogue states. Another weight $\{g_t^{s,pl^{'}}\}$ (from the passage-level fusion gate) merge the turn/passage-level balanced information $\{f_t^{s,pl}\}$ and the strengthened information $\{f_t^{s,pl^{'}}\}$ to form the core feature $\{f_t^{s}\}$, which is utilized in the downstream tasks.

\subsection{BERT-Base Encoder}
Due to pre-trained models' (e.g., BERT) strong language understanding capabilities \citep{mehri2020dialoglue}, we use the fixed-parameter BERT-Base encoder ($\mathrm{BERT}_{fixed}$) to extract the representation of slot names, slot values and the previous dialogue states. Three parts share the same parameters from HuggingFace \footnote{https://huggingface.co/}. We also apply a tunable BERT-Base encoder ($\mathrm{BERT}_{tunable}$) to learn the informal and noisy utterances distribution \citep{zhang2019dialogpt} in the dialogue context. The two BERT-Base Encoders are input layers of the model. [CLS] and [SEP] represent the beginning and the end of a text sequence. We use the output at [CLS] to represent the whole text for $\mathrm{BERT}_{fixed}$. A slot-value pair in the last dialogue states at the $t$-th turn is denoted as:
\begin{equation}
h_{t}^{ls} = \mathrm{BERT}_{fixed}([s;v_{t-1}]) \label{last dialogue state unit}
\end{equation}
where $h_{t}^{ls}$ is the $s$ slot-related representation of last dialogue state at the dialogue $t$-th turn. Thus the full representation of the last dialogue states at the $t$-th turn is as follows:
\begin{equation}
h_{t}^{l} = h_{t}^{ls_1}\oplus\cdots h_{t}^{ls_k}\cdots\oplus h_{t}^{ls_{n}} \quad ls_k\in\mathcal{S}
\end{equation}
$\oplus$ means concatenation. The entire history of the dialogue states is $H_t^{p} = \{h_{1}^{l},\cdots, h_{t-1}^{l},h_{t}^{l} \}$. The representations of slot $s$ and its corresponding value $v_t$ are as follows:
\begin{equation}
h^{s} = \mathrm{BERT}_{fixed}(s)
\end{equation}
\begin{equation}
h^{v} = \mathrm{BERT}_{fixed}(v_t)
\end{equation}
$\mathrm{BERT}_{tunable}$ extracts utterances distribution of user $U_t = \{w_1^u, \cdots, w_l^u\}$ and system $R_t = \{w_1^r, \cdots, w_{l}^r\}$ at the $t$-th turn, which are marked as:
\begin{equation}
h_{t} = \mathrm{BERT}_{tunable}([R_t;U_t])
\end{equation}
The dialogue context until $t$-th turn is $H_t = \{h_1, \cdots, h_{t-1}, h_{t}\}$.

\subsection{MultiHead-Attention Unit}
We utilize MultiHead-Attention \citep{vaswani2017attention} here to get the slot-related information from the turn utterance and the corresponding last dialogue states. The representations at the $t$-th turn are as follows:
\begin{equation}\label{attention_1}
l_{t}^{s}= \mathrm{Attention\_1}(h^{s},h_t^{l},h_t^{l})
\end{equation}
\begin{equation}\label{attention_2}
c_{t}^{s} = \mathrm{Attention\_2}(h^s,h_t,h_t)
\end{equation}
Another attention unit is applied to get the passage-level information of a slot from the mutual interaction information
$H_t^{s, tl} = \{h_{t,1}^{s, tl},\cdots, h_{t,t-1}^{s, tl}, h_{t,t}^{s, tl}\}$, which is described in section \ref{Transformer Encoder}.
\begin{equation}\label{attention_3}
m_{t}^{s,pl}=\mathrm{Attention\_3}(h^s, H_t^{s, tl}, H_t^{s, tl})
\end{equation}
We apply an attention unit to connect the representation of the merged turn/passage-level balanced information $f_t^{s,pl}$ and the last dialogue states to enhance the impact of the last dialogue states.
\begin{equation}\label{attention_4}
f_t^{s, pl^{'}} = \mathrm{Attention\_4}(f_{t}^{s,pl} ,h_t^l,h_t^l)
\end{equation}
$f_t^{s, pl^{'}}$ is the enhanced result. All attention units above do not share parameters.

\subsection{Transformer Encoder} \label{Transformer Encoder}
The complete turn-level merged information $M_t^{s,tl} = \{m_{1}^{s,tl},\cdots, m_{t-1}^{s,tl},m_{t}^{s,tl}\}$ has no dialogue sequence information. Besides, each turn representation does not fully share information. Thus we apply a transformer encoder \citep{vaswani2017attention}.
\begin{equation}
H_t^{s, tl} = \mathrm{TransformerEncoder}(M_t^{s,tl})
\end{equation}
where $H_t^{s, tl} = \{h_{t,1}^{s, tl},\cdots, h_{t,t-1}^{s, tl}, h_{t,t}^{s, tl}\}$ means the mutual interaction information. $h_{t,1}^{s,tl}$ means the $s$ slot-related representation of the $1^{st}$ dialogue turn after turn interaction, when the dialogue comes to the $t$-th turn. The transformer encoder utilizes positional encoding to record the position information and self-attention to get interacted information in each dialogue turn.

\subsection{Fusion Gate}
Fusion gate is applied to merge the information as follows:
\begin{equation}
g_{t}^{s,tl} = \sigma (W_{tl}\odot[c_t^s;l_t^s])
\end{equation}
\begin{equation}
m_{t}^{s,tl} = (1 - g_{t}^{s,tl})\otimes c_t^s + g_{t}^{s,tl} \otimes l_t^s
\end{equation}
$\odot$ and $\otimes$ mean the matrix product and point-wise product. $\sigma$ is the sigmoid function. $g_{t}^{s,tl}$ is the output weight of the fusion gate to keep the information from the last dialogue state. $M_t^{s,tl} = \{m_{1}^{s,tl},\cdots, m_{t-1}^{s,tl},m_{t}^{s,tl}\}$ is the turn-level information;
\begin{equation}
g_t^{s, pl} = \sigma(W_{pl}\odot[m_t^{s,tl};m_t^{s,pl}])
\end{equation}
\begin{equation}
f_{t}^{s,pl} = (1-g_t^{s, pl})\otimes m_t^{s,pl} + g_t^{s, pl}\otimes m_t^{s,tl}
\end{equation}
$g_t^{s, pl}$ is the weight to balance the turn-level merged information $m_{t}^{s,tl}$ and the passage-level extracted information $m_t^{s,pl}$;
\begin{equation}
g_t^{s, pl^{'}} = \sigma(W_{pl^{'}}\odot[f_{t}^{s,pl};f_{t}^{s,pl^{'}}])
\end{equation}
\begin{equation}
f_{t}^{s} = (1-g_t^{s, pl^{'}})\otimes f_{t}^{s,pl} + g_t^{s, pl}\otimes f_{t}^{s,pl^{'}}
\end{equation}
$g_t^{s, pl^{'}}$ is the weight to balance the merged turn/passage-level balanced information $f_{t}^{s,pl}$ and the enhanced result $f_{t}^{s,pl^{'}}$ from equation \ref{attention_4}. $f_t^{s}$ is  $s$ slot-related core feature from context and the entire history of dialogue states.

\subsection{Loss Function}
Here we follow \citet{shan2020contextual} to calculate the probability distribution of value $v_t$ and predict whether the slot $s$ should be updated or kept compared to the last dialogue states. Thus our loss functions are as follows:
\begin{equation}
o_{t}^{s} = \mathrm{LayerNorm}(\mathrm{Linear}(\mathrm{Dropout}(f_t^{s})))
\end{equation}
\begin{equation}
p(v_{t}|U_{\le t}, R_{\le t}, s) =\frac{\mathrm{exp}(-\|o^s_t-h^v\|_{2})}{\sum\limits_{v^{'} \in \mathcal{V}_{s}}\mathrm{exp}(-\|o^s_t-h^{v^{'}}\|_{2})}
\end{equation}
\begin{equation}
\mathcal{L}_{dst} = \sum\limits_{s\in\mathcal{S}}\sum\limits_{t=1}^{T}-\mathrm{log}(p(\widehat{v}_{t}|U_{\le t}, R_{\le t}, s))
\end{equation}
$\mathcal{L}_{dst}$ is the distance loss for true value $\widehat{v}$ of slot $s$;
\begin{equation}
c_t^{s, stp} = \mathrm{tanh}(W_c\odot f_t^{s})
\end{equation}
\begin{equation}
p_t^{s,stp} = \sigma(W_p\odot[c_t^{s, stp};c_{t-1}^{s, stp}])
\end{equation}
\begin{equation}
\mathcal{L}_{stp} = \sum\limits_{s\in\mathcal{S}}\sum\limits_{t=1}^{T}-y_{t}^{s,stp}\cdot \mathrm{log}({p_{t}^{s,stp}})
\end{equation}
$\mathcal{L}_{stp}$ is the loss function for state transition prediction, which has the value set $\{keep, update\}$. $p_t^{s,stp}$ is update probability for slot $s$ at the $t$-th turn. $y_t^{s,stp}$ is the state transition label with $update$ $y_t^{s,stp}=1$ and $keep$ $y_t^{s,stp}=0$ . We optimize the sum of above loss in the training process:
\begin{equation}
\mathcal{L}_{joint} = \mathcal{L}_{dst}+\mathcal{L}_{stp}
\end{equation}

\begin{table*}
\centering
\resizebox{0.66\textwidth}{!}{
\begin{tabular}{c|c|c}
\hline \textbf{Model} & \textbf{MultiWOZ 2.0} & \textbf{MultiWOZ 2.1} \\
\cline{2-3}
&\textbf{Joint Acc ($\%$)}&\textbf{Joint Acc ($\%$)}\\
\hline
TRADE \citep{wu-etal-2019-transferable} & 48.62 & 46.00 \\
DST-picklist \citep{zhang2019find} & 54.39  & 53.30 \\
TripPy \citep{heck2020trippy} & - & 55.30\\
SimpleTOD \citep{hosseini2020simple} & - & 56.45 \\
CHAN \citep{shan2020contextual} & 52.68 & 58.55 \\
CHAN$^{*}$ \citep{shan2020contextual} & -  & 57.45 \\
\hline
FPDSC (base) & 51.03 & 54.91\\
FPDSC (passage-level)& 52.31 & 55.86 \\
FPDSC (turn-level)& \textbf{55.03} & 57.88\\
FPDSC (dual-level) & 53.17 & \textbf{59.07}\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
}
\caption{\label{Joint Acc} Joint accuracy on the test sets of MultiWOZ 2.0 and 2.1. CHAN$^{*}$ means performance without adaptive objective fine-tuning, which solves the slot-imbalance problem. CHAN means performance with the full strategy. The overall structure of FPDSC (dual-level) is illustrated in Figure \ref{fig1}.}
\end{table*}

\section{Experiments Setup}
\subsection{Datasets}
We evaluate our model on MultiWOZ 2.0 and MultiWOZ 2.1 datasets. They are multi-domain task-oriented dialogue datasets. MultiWOZ 2.1 identified and fixed many erroneous annotations and user utterances \citep{zang2020multiwoz}.
\subsection{Baseline}
We compare FPDSC with the following approaches:

\noindent
\textbf{TRADE} is composed of an utterance encoder, a slot-gate, and a generator. The approach generates value for every slot using the copy-augmented decoder \citep{wu-etal-2019-transferable}.

\noindent
\textbf{CHAN} employs a contextual hierarchical attention network to enhance the DST. The method applies an adaptive objective to  alleviate the slot imbalance problem \citep{shan2020contextual}.

\noindent
\textbf{DST-picklist} adopts a BERT-style reading comprehension model to jointly handle both categorical and non-categorical slots, matching the value from ontologies \citep{zhang2019find}.

\noindent
\textbf{TripPy} applies three copy mechanisms to get value span. It regards user input, system inform memory and previous dialogue states as sources \citep{heck2020trippy}.

\noindent
\textbf{SimpleTOD} is an end-to-end approach and regards sub-tasks in the task oriented dialogue task as a sequence prediction problem\citep{hosseini2020simple}.

\subsection{Training Details}
Our code is public \footnote{https://github.com/helloacl/DST-DCPDS}, which is developed based on \textbf{CHAN}'s code \footnote{https://github.com/smartyfh/CHAN-DST}.
In our experiments, we use the Adam optimizer \citep{kingma2014adam}. We use a batch size of 2 and maximal sequence length of 64 for each dialogue turn. The transformer encoder has 6 layers. The multi-head attention units have counts of 4 and hidden sizes of 784. The training process consists of two phases: 1) teacher-forcing training; 2) uniform scheduled sampling \citep{bengio2015scheduled}. The warmup proportion is 0.1 and the peak learning rate is 1e-4. The model is saved according to the best joint accuracy on the validation data. The training process stops with no improvement in 15 continuous epochs. Our training devices are GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and Intel Core i7-6800 CPU@3.40GHZ. The training time of an epoch takes around 0.8 hour in the teacher-forcing phase and 1.6 hours in the uniform scheduled sampling phase with a GPU.

\section{Results and Analysis}

\begin{table}
\small
\centering
\begin{tabular}{cccc}
\hline
Deleted-Value&&&\\
\hline
Base & Turn & Passage & Dual\\
\hline
$2.84\%$ & $22.87\%$ & $23.98\%$ & $25.22\%$\\
\hline
Related-Slot&&&\\
\hline
Base & Turn & Passage & Dual\\
\hline
$46.63\%$ & $57.85\%$ & $62.23\%$ & $70.85\%$\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\caption{\label{value_delete_related} Success change rate of the deleted-value and related-slot experiment for FPDSC. Turn, Passage, Dual mean turn-level, passage-level and dual-level FPDSC.}
\end{table}

\subsection{Main Results}
We use the joint accuracy to evaluate the general performance. Table \ref{Joint Acc} shows that our models get 55.03$\%$ and 59.07$\%$ joint accuracy with improvements (0.64$\%$ and 0.52$\%$) over previous best results on MultiWOZ 2.0 and 2.1. All of our approaches get better performance on 2.1 than 2.0.  This is probably because of fewer annotations error in MultiWOZ 2.1. Though Table \ref{value_delete_related} shows that the passage-level variant performs better than the turn-level variant in the deleted-value and the related-slot test, passage-level variant gets worse results in the general test. The small proportion of the above problem in the MultiWOZ dataset and the strong sensitivity of the turn-level fusion gate to signal tokens in the utterance explain the phenomenon.

\subsection{The Comparative Experiment for the Fusion Gate}
We design a comparative network to validate the effectiveness of the turn-level fusion gate. Figure \ref{no_gate} shows the part structure of the comparative network (no turn-level fusion gate). The rest of the comparative network is the same as the FPDSC (turn-level). Table \ref{no gate comparative result} shows the performance of the comparative network and the FPDSC (turn-level) on the MultiWOZ 2.1. The result validates the effectiveness of the fusion gate to merge the different information sources.

\begin{figure}[t]
\includegraphics[width=7cm]{no_gate.pdf}
\caption{Part of the comparative network}
\label{no_gate}
\end{figure}

\begin{table}
\small
\begin{tabular}{c|c|c|c|c}
\hline
Dataset & no-gate$^{*}$ & no-gate & turn-level$^{*}$ & turn-level \\
\hline
dev  & 46.38 & 52.58 & 56.17 & 61.39 \\
\hline
test &  43.03 & 49.24 & 54.08 & 57.88 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\caption{Joint accuracy results of the comparative network (no-gate) and FPDSC (turn-level) on the MultiWOZ 2.1 dataset. $^{*}$ indicates the approach is only trained with teacher-forcing, otherwise is further trained by uniform scheduled sampling after the teacher-forcing phase.}
\label{no gate comparative result}
\end{table}

\subsection{The Comparative Experiment for the Complete Dialogue States }
We design another comparative network to validate the effectiveness of the complete previous dialogue states. As Figure \ref{fig1} shows, $\{m_1^{s,tl}, \dots, m_{t-1}^{s,tl}, m_{t}^{s,tl}\}$ are fed to the transformer encoder in the FPDSC (turn-level). In the comparative network (single),  $\{c_1^s, \dots, c_{t-1}^{s}, m_t^{s,tl}\}$ are fed to the transformer encoder. Table \ref{single turn comparative result} shows the complete previous dialogue states improve the general performance of the model.

\begin{table}
\small
\begin{tabular}{c|c|c|c|c}
\hline
Dataset & single$^{*}$ & single & turn-level$^{*}$ & turn-level \\
\hline
dev  & 57.25 & 60.94 & 56.17 & 61.39 \\
\hline
test &  54.40 & 56.70 & 54.08 & 57.88 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\caption{Joint accuracy results of the comparative network (single) and the FPDSC (turn-level) on the MultiWOZ 2.1 dataset. $^{*}$ means that the approach is only trained in the teacher-forcing training, otherwise is further trained by uniform scheduled sampling training after the teacher-forcing phase.}
\label{single turn comparative result}
\end{table}

\subsection{Deleted-value Tests}
We select dialogues containing the deleted-value problem from test data in MultiWOZ 2.1. We regard the above dialogues as templates and augment the test data by replacing the original slot value with other slot values in the ontology. There are 800 dialogues in the augmented data. We only count the slots in dialogue turn,  which occurs the deleted-value problem.  As shown in Table \ref{MUL2359}, if \textit{restaurant-name=rice house} at the $6^{th}$ turn and \textit{restaurant-name=None} at the $7^{th}$ turn, we regard it as a successful tracking. We use the success change rate to evaluate the effectiveness. Table \ref{value_delete_related} shows that the explicit introduction of the previous dialogue states in both turn-level and passage-level helps solve the problem.

\begin{table}
\small
\begin{tabular}{l}
\hline
$U_{1}$:Find me a museum please\\
\textbf{restaurant-name: None}\\
\hline
$S_{2}$:There are 23 museums. Do you have an area as \\preference?\\
$U_{2}$:I just need the area and address for one of them.\\
\textbf{restaurant-name: None}\\
\hline
$S_{3}$:I have the broughton house gallery in the centre \\at 98 king street.\\
$U_{3}$:Thank you so much. I also need a place to dine \\in the centre that serves chinese food.\\
\textbf{restaurant-name: None}\\
\hline
$S_{4}$:I have 10 place in the centre. Did you have a price \\range you were looking at? \\
$U_{4}$:I would like the cheap price range.\\
\textbf{restaurant-name: None}\\
\hline
$S_{5}$:I recommend the rice house. Would you like me \\to reserve a table?\\
$U_{5}$:yes, please book me a table for 9 on monday at 19:30.\\
\textbf{restaurant-name: rice house}\\
\hline
$S_{6}$:Unfortunately, I could not book the rice house for \\that day and time. Is there another day or time that would \\work for you?\\
$U_{6}$:Can you try a half hour earlier or later and see if the \\have anything available?\\
\textbf{restaurant-name: rice house}\\
\textbf{Dual-level: restaurant-name: rice house}\\
\textbf{Base: restaurant-name: rice house}\\
\hline
$S_{7}$:No luck, would you like me to try something else?\\
$U_{7}$:Yes, please find another cheep restaurant for that \\amount of people at that time.\\
\textbf{restaurant-name: None}\\
\textbf{Dual-level: restaurant-name: None}\\
\textbf{Base: restaurant-name: rice house}\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\caption{\label{MUL2359} Dialogue id MUL2359 from MultiWOZ 2.1}
\end{table}

\subsection{Related-slot Tests}
We focus on the multi-domain dialogues which contain dialogue domain of taxi for the related-slot test. We select 136 dialogue turns from the MultiWOZ 2.1 test data, which contains the template such as \textit{book a taxi from A to B} or \textit{commute between A and B}. We replace the explicit expression in order to focus on the actual related-slot filling situation. For example, in the dialogue from Table \ref{MUL2657}, we replace the value \textit{Ballare} to \textit{attraction} in the user utterance at the $4^{th}$ turn. We only count slots \textit{taxi-departure} and \textit{taxi-destination} without value of \textit{None} in the dialogue turns, which contain the related-slot phenomenon. We divide the sum of successful tracking counts by the number of the above slots to get the success change rate. Table \ref{value_delete_related} shows the result.

\begin{table}
\small
\begin{tabular}{l}
\hline
$U_{1}$: Can you give me information on an attraction \\called ballare?\\
\textbf{taxi-departure: None;taxi-destination: None}\\
\hline
$S_{2}$: The Ballare is located in Heidelberg Gardens, \\Lion Yard postcode cb23na, phone number is \\01223364222. The entrance fee is 5 pounds.\\
$U_{2}$: Thanks. I'm also looking for somewhere to stay\\ in the north. It should be in the moderate price range \\and has a star of 2 as well\\
\textbf{taxi-departure: None;taxi-destination: None}\\
\hline
$S_{3}$: Would you want to try the lovell lodge, \\which is in the moderate price range and in the north.\\
$U_{3}$: Let's do that. Please reserve it for 6 people and\\ 5 nights starting from thursday.\\
\textbf{taxi-departure: None;taxi-destination: None}\\\hline
$S_{4}$: The booking goes through and the reference \\number is TY5HFLY1.\\
$U_{4}$: Can you help me to book a taxi from the \\hotel to the Ballare. I want to leave by 17:30.\\
\textbf{taxi-departure: lovell lodge}\\
\textbf{taxi-destination: ballare};\textbf{taxi-leave: 17:30}\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\caption{\label{MUL2657} Dialogue id MUL2657 from MultiWOZ 2.1}
\end{table}

\begin{table}
\small
\begin{tabular}{c|c|c|c|c}
\hline
Joint Acc &\multicolumn{2}{c}{Normal Evaluation} &\multicolumn{2}{|c}{Evaluation with}\\
$\%$&\multicolumn{2}{c}{}&\multicolumn{2}{|c}{Teacher Forcing}\\
\hline
Dataset& dev & test & dev & test\\
\hline
Base & 58.01 &54.91 & $-$ & $-$\\
\hline
Turn-level$^{*}$ & 56.17 & 54.08 & 69.13 & 65.82\\
\hline
Turn-level & 61.39 & 57.88 & $-$ & $-$ \\
\hline
Passage-level$^{*}$ & 55.21 & 52.40 & 66.84 & 61.92\\
\hline
Passage-level & 61.11 & 55.86 & $-$ & $-$\\
\hline
Dual-level$^{*}$ & 56.17 & 54.08 & 70.22 & 67.17 \\
\hline
Dual-level & 61.89 & 59.07 & $-$ & $-$\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\caption{\label{phase_study} Joint accuracy results of variants of our approach in different training phase on MultiWOZ 2.1. Normal evaluation means that the approach uses predicted dialogue states as inputs. Evaluation with teacher forcing means that it uses truth label as previous dialogue states. $^{*}$ means that the approach is only trained in teacher-forcing training, otherwise is further trained by uniform scheduled sampling training after the teacher-forcing phase.}
\end{table}

\begin{figure*}[t]
\centering
\resizebox{1\linewidth}{!}{
\includegraphics[width=25cm]{Slot_Gate.pdf}}
\caption{Visualization of output weights in the fusion gates. The weight represents the proportion of the information from the previous dialogue states. The large weight with dark color means that the prediction of the slot value pays much attention to the previous dialogue states. Turn, Passage, Dual mean FPDSC with turn-level, passage-level and dual-level.}
\label{slot gate}
\end{figure*}

\subsection{Gate Visualization}
Figure \ref{slot gate} shows the output weight of the turn/passage-level fusion gates in dialogue \textbf{MUL2359} (Table \ref{MUL2359}) and \textbf{MUL2657} (Table \ref{MUL2657}) from MultiWOZ 2.1. \textbf{Turn}, \textbf{Passage}, \textbf{Dual} in titles of subplots represent FPDSC with turn-level, passage-level, and dual-level. All the weights in Figure \ref{slot gate} mean the information keep-proportion from the last dialogue states.

When we focus on the slot \textbf{restaurant-name} in dialogue \textbf{MUL2359}. The output weight in the turn-level fusion gate is small at the $5^{th}$ and the $7^{th}$ dialogue turn in turn/dual-level approaches. Since the slot value \textbf{rice house} is first mentioned at the $5^{th}$ turn and the constraint is released at the $7^{th}$ turn, the change of the weight for slot \textbf{restaurant-name} is reasonable. When we focus on slots \textbf{taxi-departure}, \textbf{taxi-destination}, and \textbf{taxi-leave at} at the $4^{th}$ turn of dialogue \textbf{MUL2657}, the respective information sources for above three slots are only previous dialogue state (\textbf{hotel-name} to \textbf{taxi-departure}), both previous dialogue state and current user utterance (\textbf{Ballare} can be found in both user utterance and previous dialogue states of \textbf{attraction-name}), only user utterance (\textbf{17:30} appears only in the user utterance at the $4^{th}$ dialogue turn). As shown in Figure \ref{slot gate}, at the $4^{th}$ dialogue turn of \textbf{MUL2657}, \textbf{taxi-departure} has a large weight, \textbf{taxi-destination} has a middle weight, \textbf{taxi-leave at} has a small weight. This trend is as expected.

Figure \ref{slot gate} also shows that the turn-level fusion gate is sensitive to signal tokens in the current user expression. At the 4$^{th}$ dialogue turn of \textbf{MUL2359}, the word \textbf{cheap} triggers low output weight of the turn-level fusion gate for slots \textbf{hotel-price range} and \textbf{restaurant-price range}. It is reasonable that no domain signal is in the 4$^{th}$ utterance. The output of the passage-level fusion gate will keep a relatively low weight once the corresponding slot is mentioned in the dialogue except for the name-related slot.

Although the output weights of the passage-level fusion gate share similar distribution in passage/dual-level method at the $7^{th}$ dialogue turn of \textbf{MUL2359}. FPDSC (passage-level) has a false prediction of \textbf{restaurant-name} and FPDSC (dual-level) is correct. Two fusion gates can work together to improve the performance. It explains the high performance in dual-level strategy.

\subsection{Ablation Study}
Table \ref{Joint Acc} shows that the passage/turn/dual-level approaches get improvements ($0.95\%$, $2.97\%$, $4.16\%$) compared to the base approach in MultiWOZ 2.1. The results show the turn-level fusion gate is vital to our approaches. The entire history of dialogue states is helpful for DST.
The uniform scheduled sampling training is crucial for improving our models' performance. In Table \ref{phase_study}, \textbf{dev} and \textbf{test} represent validation and test data. As the table shows, all of our approaches improve the joint accuracy around $3\%$ after uniform scheduled sampling training. The falsely predicted dialogue states work as the data noise, which improves the model's robustness. The base approach utilizes only the information from the context without uniform scheduled sampling training.

\section{Conclusion}
In this paper, we combine the entire history of the predicted dialogue state and the contextual representation of dialogue for DST. We use a hierarchical fusion network to merge the turn/passage-level information. Both levels of information is useful to solve the deleted-value and related-slot problem. Therefore, our models reach state-of-the-art performance on MultiWOZ 2.0 and MultiWOZ 2.1.

The turn-level fusion gate is sensitive to signal tokens from the current turn utterance. The passage-level fusion gate is relatively stable. Uniform scheduled sampling training is crucial for improving our models' performance. The entire history of dialogue states helps at extracting information in each dialogue utterance. Although some errors exist in the predicted dialogue states, the errors work as the data noise in the training to enhance the proposed model's robustness.

Although our approach is based on predefined ontology, the strategy for information extraction is universal. Besides, the core feature $f_t^{s}$ can be introduced to a decoder to generate the slot state, which suits most open-domain DST.

\section*{Acknowledgement}
We thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. This work is supported by the NSFC projects (No. 62072399, No. 61402403), Hithink RoyalFlush Information Network Co., Ltd, Hithink RoyalFlush AI Research Institute, Chinese Knowledge Center for Engineering Sciences and Technology, MoE Engineering Research Center of Digital Library, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

\bibliographystyle{acl_natbib}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


People with diabetes or other chronic conditions are invited to attend the programs at no cost. Workshops consist of from 12 to 16 participants and are facilitated from a highly detailed manual by two lay trainers, one or both of whom have diabetes or a chronic health condition.
Participants make weekly action plans, share experiences, and help each other solve problems they encounter in creating and carrying out their self-management program. Physicians and other health professionals at Stanford University and in Delaware have reviewed all materials in the course.
Each participant in the workshop receives a copy of the companion book, Living a Healthy Life with Chronic Conditions and a relaxation CD.
The program does not conflict with existing programs or treatment. In fact, the classes enhance those provided through accredited programs often provided in hospital settings. Treatment is not altered. For medical questions, participants are referred to their physicians. If the content of the course conflicts with instructions they receive elsewhere, they are advised to follow their physicians' orders and discuss discrepancies with the doctor.
Please contact us if you have diabetes or another chronic condition and/or if you know someone who may benefit from attending a workshop. Additionally, you may consider becoming a lay trainer if you are interested in helping other people with chronic diseases improve their quality of life. If you would like to host a Chronic Disease Self-Management Program at your site or become a lay leader, please call the Diabetes and Heart Disease Prevention and Control Program for more information.
To register for a free Diabetes Self-Management Program please use our online registration at HealthyDelaware.org/selfmanagement or call 302-744-1020.
Return to Main Diabetes Program Page.


Spatial data recorded. This findspot is known as 'HEREFORD AND WORCESTER NAUNTON BEAUCHAMP', grid reference and parish protected.
Spatial data recorded. This findspot is known as 'HEREFORD AND WORCESTER KIDDERMINSTER FOREIGN', grid reference and parish protected.
Spatial data recorded. This findspot is known as 'HEREFORD AND WORCESTER BROOME', grid reference and parish protected.
Spatial data recorded. This findspot is known as 'WARWICKSHIRE BIDFORD ON AVON', grid reference and parish protected.
A cut halfpenny of Henry III of England.
Spatial data recorded. This findspot is known as 'HEREFORD AND WORCESTER WHITE LADIES ASTON', grid reference and parish protected.
Spatial data recorded. This findspot is known as 'WARWICKSHIRE WARWICK', grid reference and parish protected.
Spatial data recorded. This findspot is known as 'HEREFORD AND WORCESTER BAYTON', grid reference and parish protected.
Spatial data recorded. This findspot is known as 'HEREFORD AND WORCESTER INKBERROW', grid reference and parish protected.
81 - 100 of 9,336 records.


text:
Wild Card Round Predictions
Buffalo Bills Rulings Review – Week 18.
The day is May 8th, 2014. The Buffalo Bills trade up to the fourth overall pick from the Cleveland Browns. Who are they moving up for? Clemson standout WR Sammy Watkins would be their pick. Watkins had 1,464 yards & 12 TDs in his last year of college, along with an All-American & All-ACC award in 2013. Watkins was the first Bills receiver selected in the first round since Lee Evans since 2004.
Bills trade: 2014 first round pick (9th overall, traded to Vikings: LB Anthony Barr), 2015 first & 4th round selections (OL Cameron Erving & DB Ibraheim Campbell).
Browns trade: 2014 first round pick (4th overall: Sammy Watkins).
How did he do?
Sammy had an up and down three seasons in Buffalo. His first year looked promising, catching 65 receptions for 982 yards & 6 TDs with second-year QB EJ Manuel. His second year was even better, with 60 receptions for 1,047 yards & 9 TDs. He went into his third season with a lot of promise, looking like the WR1 of the future. However, Watkins would break a small bone in his foot & land on IR from September 30th to November 26th. In the eight games he played, he totaled 430 yards & 2 TDs. On August 11th, 2017, Watkins would be traded to the LA Rams in exchange for CB EJ Gaines & a second round pick, officially wiping the Bills' hands clean of the Watkins experiment.
After the Rams, Watkins would go on to play for two other teams, the Kansas City Chiefs & the Baltimore Ravens. Watkins would sign a three year/$48M deal with the Chiefs & win a Super Bowl there in 2019. After the 2020 season, Watkins would sign a one year/$6M deal with the Ravens, where he would total 394 yards & 1 TD in 13 games.
Did they go wrong?
So, did the Bills go wrong with the pick? Let's take a look at some of the players taken after him.
LB Khalil Mack
DT Aaron Donald
LB Anthony Barr
WR Mike Evans
WR Odell Beckham Jr
OL Taylor Lewan
Related Topics:Bills HistoryBuffalo BillsBuffalo FanaticsFootballNFLSammy Watkins
Wild Card Weekend Teaser and Prop Bets
Buffalo Bills Wild Card History
Comment below! Cancel reply

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


As part of the United Church of Christ denomination, we are a covenantal rather than a creedal church. That means that our faith is not measured against, or defined by, a doctrine or creed. Instead, our church is made through our covenant with each other, shown below. The diversity of beliefs among our members enriches and enlivens our church.
As a family of God in the spirit of the first creation, we are called into being by the risen Christ, and are calling together brothers and sisters to worship God and to make a joyful and hopeful commitment to the continuing life of Northshore United Church of Christ.
We intend to unite our efforts to develop, sustain, and reinforce the sense of loving community within the individual and church family.
We intend to be sensitive and receptive to the needs and wants of each other, remembering that the lines of communication must remain open with every person having the right to express their opinions in the life of the church.
We intend to celebrate our lives together through meaningful traditions, sacraments, and special occasions.
We intend to work together beyond our immediate family and congregation using our energies and resources to create a better world in which we all live, through community service, national and world concerns, and Our Christian World Mission.
We intend to discipline our own consumption and govern our stewardship of God's creation.


Blissfully boozy chocolates is an exquisite selection of our favourite alcoholic chocolates, packed full of flavour and personality. Indulge in the delicious combination of 72% cocoa dark chocolate and rum truffle or the more delicate, creamy, white chocolate truffle finished beautifully with a splash of Champagne.
Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Whole Milk Powder, Cocoa Mass, Water, Liquid Invert Sugar Syrup, Glucose Syrup, Evaporated Milk, Marc de Champagne, Whisky, Rum, Orange Liqueur, Butter (Milk), Cream (Milk), Alcohol, Vegetable Oils (Palm, Coconut, Palm Kernel), Glucose-Fructose Syrup, Sorbitol, Emulsifier (Soya Lecithin, Sunflower Lecithin), Skimmed Milk Powder, Anhydrous Milk Fat, Butter Oil (Milk), Flavourings, Low Fat Cocoa Powder, Strawberry & Champagne Flavouring, Natural Vanilla Flavour, Natural Orange Oil, Colour E129; Salt, Acidity Regulator: E330.


text:
Q: How to handle TCP data? I am doing a project which continuously receives data from TCP socket.
I need to pass that data to another activity so that I can perform my action.
For passing data every time intent passing is useless.
We can use timer but their could be some data loss.
I need some process like, it should through data continuously in the moment it receives.
please suggest me which is the best process to handle TCP data in this case.
I feel more thank full if you give me an example.
Here is my TCP connection and receiving code
Sockets = new Socket("My IP",Port);
while (s.isConnected()) {
in = new BufferedReader(
new InputStreamReader(s.getInputStream()));
int nRead;
char[] data = new char[1024 + 1024];
String decoded = "";
while ((nRead = in.read(data, 0, data.length)) != -1) {
decoded = new String(data, 0, nRead); **// This decoded data need to pass to another activity.**
}

A: You can use a Handler targeted to Looper.getMainLooper() to efficiently, repeatedly post data to the UI thread from a background thread.
The Communicating with the UI Thread section of the Android Training pages explains how to use a Handler. I also wrote a blog post about Loopers a while ago that reveals a bit about how they work.

A: Did you try looking at AIDL? Below are some links
Need AIDL tutorials
http://developer.android.com/guide/components/aidl.html

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: Why derived class pointer cannot be assigned a base classes' pointer? I m learning in c++ from the textbook but still confusing
C++ Programme:
using namespace std;
#include<iostream>

class A
{
public:
    A()
    {
        std::cout << "A\n";
    }
};

class B: public A
{
public:
    B()
    {
        std::cout << "B is derived class\n";
    }
};

int main()
{

    A * a=new A();  //valid
    B * b=new B();  //valid

    A * aa=new B(); //valid    why?
    B * bb=new A(); //invalid  why?                                  run time error: invalid conversion from 'A*' to 'B*' [-fpermissive]

    return 0;
}

this line
A * a=new A();  //valid

use because I want to access class a
and
this line
B * b=new B();  //valid

use because I want to access class b
and
I m writing this line learning purpose I don't know but this is valid why??
A * aa=new B();  //valid

and
I m writing this line learning purpose I don't know but this is not valid why??
B * bb=new A(); //not valid

please explain the last two lines still confusion?
programme link: https://onlinegdb.com/Sy8xkt38L

A: This
class B: public A

effectively says all B's are A's, Its like
class Lion : public Animal

says all lions are animals.
So this is OK
Animal* a = new Lion();

because all lions are animals. It's safe to assume that a lion is an animal. But this is not OK
Lion* l = new Animal();

because not all animals are lions. You can't take any old animal and pretend it's a lion.


text:
Static site for my Notes.

Hi, Welcome !

This is a static site consisting of the compilation of my notes. I keep taking notes as i like and I will keep updating this site.

This site will contain useful links, information and resources that i need for myself and something others could also benefit from that i wish to share.

Happy Reading !!!

- Cheers and Warm Regards,

Signing Off : Sumeet

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Brand new/unopened extra Pannacrema Nuavia Rossa. (Soap is $80.25 delivered from Rome.) I'm in Boston Friday pickup $60. Thanks.
Great deal for a great soap! Someone should jump on this one, if you don't have it already.
I did, but got no reply hehe.
Oh he changed it, pick up only.


text:
Global Vertical Lift Module (VLM) Market will Worth USD 1666 Million by 2023
The global Vertical Lift Module (VLM) market has been anticipated to witness a crucial demand over the projected period. The global Vertical Lift Module (VLM) market valued at USD 983 Million in 2017 and is predicted to extend up to USD 1666 Million by the end of 2023, with ...
Global Acoustic Emission Testing Market will Worth USD 348 Million by 2023
The global Acoustic Emission Testing market has been anticipated to witness a crucial demand over the projected period. The global Acoustic Emission Testing market valued at USD 226 Million in 2017 and is predicted to extend up to USD 348 Million by the end of 2023, with growing CAGR ...
Global Artificial Intelligence Market will Worth USD 98.8 Billion by 2023
The global Artificial Intelligence market has been anticipated to witness a crucial demand over the projected period. The global Artificial Intelligence market valued at USD 15.7 Billion in 2017 and is predicted to extend up to USD 98.8 Billion by the end of 2023, with growing CAGR of 35.80% from 2018 ...
Global Artificial Intelligence Chipsets Market will Worth USD 32.3 Billion by 2023
The global Artificial Intelligence Chipsets market has been anticipated to witness a crucial demand over the projected period. The global Artificial Intelligence Chipsets market valued at USD 5.2 Billion in 2017 and is predicted to extend up to USD 32.3 Billion by the end of 2023, with growing CAGR ...
Global Artificial Intelligence in Aviation Market will Worth USD 1022 Million by 2023
The global Artificial Intelligence in Aviation market has been anticipated to witness a crucial demand over the projected period. The global Artificial Intelligence in Aviation market valued at USD 103 Million in 2017 and is predicted to extend up to USD 1022 Million by the end of 2023, with ...
Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) Robots Market will Worth USD 12.3 Billion by 2023
The global Artificial Intelligence (AI) Robots market has been anticipated to witness a crucial demand over the projected period. The global Artificial Intelligence (AI) Robots market valued at USD 2.7 Billion in 2017 and is predicted to extend up to USD 12.3 Billion by the end of 2023, with ...
Global Artificial Intelligence in Marketing Market will Worth USD 23.41 Billion by 2023
The global Artificial Intelligence in Marketing market has been anticipated to witness a crucial demand over the projected period. The global Artificial Intelligence in Marketing market valued at USD 4.99 Billion in 2017 and is predicted to extend up to USD 23.41 Billion by the end of 2023, with ...
Global Machine Condition Monitoring Market will Worth USD 3.27 Billion by 2023
The global Machine Condition Monitoring market has been anticipated to witness a crucial demand over the projected period. The global Machine Condition Monitoring market valued at USD 2.23 Billion in 2017 and is predicted to extend up to USD 3.27 Billion by the end of 2023, with growing CAGR ...
Global Silicon Photonics Market will Worth USD 1894 Million by 2023
The global Silicon Photonics market has been anticipated to witness a crucial demand over the projected period. The global Silicon Photonics market valued at USD 647 Million in 2017 and is predicted to extend up to USD 1894 Million by the end of 2023, with growing CAGR of 19.60% from 2018 ...
Global Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Market will Worth USD 94 Billion by 2023
The global Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality market has been anticipated to witness a crucial demand over the projected period. The global Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality market valued at USD 14.85 Billion in 2017 and is predicted to extend up to USD 94 Billion by the end ...
inquiry@market.biz
Survey No. 51/14 First Floor, Office Number 4, Vishwa Arcade, Near Navale Lawns, Pune, Maharashtra, India 411041
Powered by Pvt. Ltd.
Research Mentor Copyright © 2020 | Sitemap


text:
I left the studio for a mere moment…
Featuring the amazing voice talents of (in order of appearance): Bill Farmer, Bret Iwan, Tony Anselmo and Russi Taylor. Additional voice direction by Ben Hoppe.
Voice Actors I've Recorded
Charlie Adler, Pamela Adlon, Jack Angel, Carlos Alazraqui, Wayne Allwine, Tony Anselmo, Diedrich Bader, Dee Bradley Baker, Kathryn Beaumont, Jeff Bennett, Jodi Benson, Gregg Berger, Mary Kay Bergman, Susanne Blakeslee, Clancy Brown, Rodger Bumpass, Corey Burton, Pat Carroll, Dan Castellaneta, Cam Clarke, Brian Cummings, Jim Cummings, Olivia D'Abo, E.G. Daily, Keith David, Grey DeLisle, John DiMaggio, Robin Atkin Downes, Greg Ellis, Bill Fagerbakke, Bill Farmer, Keith Ferguson, June Foray, Will Friedle, Nika Futterman, Michael Gough, Alexander Gould, Anna Graves, Richard Green, Jennifer Hale, Jess Harnell, Bret Iwan, Nick Jameson, Tony Jay, Tom Kenny, Maurice LaMarche, Hope Levy, Tress MacNeille, Jason Marsden, Vanessa Marshall, Anndi McAfee, Joel McCrary, Richard McGonagle, J. P. Minoux, Phil Morris, Nolan North, Rob Paulsen, Pat Pinney, Pete Renaday, Kevin Michael Richardson, Ernie Sabella, Harry Shearer, Lloyd Sherr, Mark Silverman, André Sogliuzzo, Kath Soucie, Stephen Stanton, David Ogden Stiers, Tara Strong, James Patrick Stuart, Nicole Sullivan, Cree Summer, Fred Tatasciore, James Arnold Taylor, Russi Taylor, Josh Thompson, Hynden Walch, Audrey Wasilewski, Frank Welker, Billy West, Mae Whiteman, April Winchell, Paul Winchell, Wally Wingert
Celebrity Voices I've Recorded
Jason Alexander, Tim Allen, Ed Asner, Rosanne Barr, Peter Boyle, Zach Braff, Larry the Cable Guy, George Carlin, Tia Carrere, Tim Curry, Billy Crystal, Placido Domingo, Ellen DeGeneres, Phyllis Diller, Paul Dooley, Michael Clarke Duncan, Craig Ferguson, Dave Foley, Matt Frewer, Stephen Furst, Brad Garrett, Crispin Glover, Bobcat Goldthwait, John Goodman, Robert Guillaume, Buddy Hackett, Jonathan Harris, Katherine Helmond, Bonnie Hunt, Anjelica Huston, Samuel L. Jackson, Allison Janney, Michael Keaton, Shia LaBeouf, Angela Lansbury, Jason Lee, Lucy Liu, John Mahoney, Cheech Marin, Garry Marshall, Leonard Nimoy, Masi Oka, Hayden Panettiere, Ron Perlman, David Hyde Pierce, John Ratzenberger, Don Rickles, Tom Selleck, Tony Shalhoub, Patrick Stewart, Jennifer Tilly, Patrick Warburton, Adam West, Steve Zahn
That guy in the blue, Hawaiian shirt at 0:54 looks familiar…
Randy 2020: You're squeaky tonight, aren't you? twitter.com/feliciaday/sta…----------	10 hours ago
Portable Recording Booth


text:
III. ICJ Cases Relating to Treaty Interpretation (1984 – 2017)
This is the third post in a series of blog posts, categorizing ICJ decisions as it relates to a particular theme, using the summaries provided in the ICJ website. Other themes will include, decisions on maritime time and territorial boundaries, on the use of force, cases where the ICJ refused to exercise its jurisdiction, or where proceedings were discontinued by parties. These summaries are not intended to be comprehensive. It is intended to give an overview on the ICJ's deliberations in that case, as it relates to the topic. The list is not yet comprehensive, and other cases will continue to be added.
Note: Relevant ICJ decisions when it comes preliminary objections are not always considered here, even if it relates to treaty interpretations. A list of cases that fall within this subsection can be found here.
1. Whaling in the Antarctic (Australia v. Japan: New Zealand intervening) Judgement 31 March 2014
Primary treaty interpreted: 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling
Excerpts of the summary provided in the ICJ website:
"Proceedings were instituted on 31 May 2010 by Australia, which accused Japan of pursuing "a large-scale program of whaling under the Second Phase of its Japanese Whale Research Program under Special Permit in the Antarctic ('JARPA II')", in breach of obligations assumed by Japan under the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling and of other international obligations for the preservation of marine mammals and the marine environment.
In the Judgment it rendered on 31 March 2014, the Court… turned to the question of the interpretation and application of Article VIII of the 1946 Convention, paragraph 1 of which states that the parties "may grant to any of [their] nationals a special permit authorizing that national to kill, take and treat whales for purposes of scientific research".
With respect to the interpretation of that provision, the Court first observed that, although Article VIII gives discretion to a State party to the Convention to reject the request for a special permit, whether the killing, taking and treating of whales pursuant to a requested special permit is for purposes of scientific research cannot depend simply on that State's perception. In the view of the Court, the two elements of the phrase for purposes of (1) scientific research (2)are cumulative.
As regards the application of that same provision, the Court indicated that JARPA II could broadly be described as a "scientific research" programme. It then turned to the question of whether it was for purposes of scientific research that lethal methods were used. To answer that question, it examined whether the programme's design and implementation were reasonable in relation to achieving its stated research objectives. The Court considered that the evidence before it did not establish that such was the case. It concluded that the special permits issued by Japan for the killing, taking and treating of whales in connection with JARPA II were not granted "for purposes of scientific research" pursuant to Article VIII, paragraph 1, of the 1946 Convention.
The Court then turned to the implications of that conclusion, in light of Australia's contention that Japan had breached several provisions of the Schedule annexed to the said Convention. Having found that Japan had indeed breached some of the provisions invoked (namely the moratoriums on commercial whaling and factory ships, and the prohibition on commercial whaling in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary), it considered the question of remedies. Since JARPA II was an ongoing programme, it ordered Japan to revoke any extant authorization, permit or licence to kill, take or treat whales in relation to JARPA II, and to refrain from granting any further permits under Article VIII, paragraph 1, of the Convention, in pursuance of that programme."
2. Application of the Interim Accord of 13 September 1995 (the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia v. Greece) Judgement 5 December 2011
Primary treaty interpreted: Interim Accord of 13 September 1995
Excerpts of the summary provided in the ICJ website: "On 17 November 2008, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia filed in the Registry of the Court an Application instituting proceedings against the Hellenic Republic in respect of a dispute concerning the interpretation and implementation of the Interim Accord of 13 September 1995. In particular, the Applicant sought to establish that, by objecting to the Applicant's admission to NATO, the Respondent had breached Article 11, paragraph 1, of the said Accord, which provides tha: "Upon entry into force of this Interim Accord, the Party of the First Part agrees not to object to the application by or the membership of the Party of the Second Part in international, multilateral and regional organizations and institutions of which the Party of the First Part is a member ; however, the Party of the First Part reserves the right to object to any membership referred to above if and to the extent the Party of the Second Part is to be referred to in such organization or institution differently than in paragraph 2 of United Nations Security Council resolution 817 (1993)." " The case summary is available here.
3. Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Argentina v. Uruguay) Judgment 20 April 2010
Primary treaty interpreted: 1975 Statute of the River Uruguay
On 4 May 2006, Argentina initiated proceedings against Uruguay concerning "alleged breaches by Uruguay of obligations incumbent upon it under the 1975 Statute of the River Uruguay, for the purpose of establishing the joint machinery necessary for the optimum and rational utilization of that part of the river which constitutes their joint boundary."
Argentina argued that Uruguay had "unilaterally authorized the construction of two pulp mills on the River Uruguay without complying with the obligatory prior notification and consultation procedures under the 1975 Statute." Argentina claimed that "those mills posed a threat to the river and its environment and were likely to impair the quality of the river's waters and to cause significant transboundary damage to Argentina. As basis for the Court's jurisdiction, Argentina invoked the first paragraph of Article 60 of the 1975 Statute, which provides that any dispute concerning the interpretation or application of that Statute which cannot be settled by direct negotiations may be submitted by either party to the Court."
While both Argentina and Uruguay made requests for the indication of provisional measures, by an Order of 13 July 2006 and 23 January 2007, the Court found that "the circumstances, as they then presented themselves to it, were not such as to require the exercise of its power under Article 41 of the Statute".
"With respect to Argentina's argument that projects had been authorized by Uruguay in violation of the mechanism for prior notification and consultation laid down by Articles 7 to 13 of the 1975 Statute (the procedural violations), the Court noted that Uruguay had not informed the Administrative Commission of the River Uruguay (a body established under the Statute) of the projects as prescribed in the Statute (…) The Court concluded that, by not informing CARU of the planned works before the issuing of the initial environmental authorizations for each of the mills and for the port terminal adjacent to the Orion (Botnia) mill, and by failing to notify the plans to Argentina through CARU, Uruguay had violated the 1975 Statute."
With respect to Argentina's contention that the industrial activities authorized by Uruguay had had, or would have, an adverse impact on the quality of the waters of the river and the area affected by it, and had caused significant damage to the quality of the waters of the river and significant transboundary damage to Argentina (the substantive violations), the Court found, based on a detailed examination of the Parties' arguments, that there was "no conclusive evidence in the record to show that Uruguay has not acted with the requisite degree of due diligence or that the discharges of effluent from the Orion (Botnia) mill have had deleterious effects or caused harm to living resources or to the quality of the water or the ecological balance of the river since it started its operations in November 2007".
"Consequently, the Court concluded that Uruguay had not breached substantive obligations under the Statute. In addition to this finding, however, the Court emphasized that, under the 1975 Statute, "[t]he Parties have a legal obligation . . . to continue their co-operation through CARU and to enable it to devise the necessary means to promote the equitable utilization of the river, while protecting its environment"."
NB: In November 2010, BBC reported that Argentina and Uruguay entered into an accord that sets up a scientific committee composed of experts from both nations which will monitor the pollution levels in the River Uruguay and within the mill.
See also an article by Dapo Akande on the ICJ's role in encouraging the settlement of disputes.
Certain Questions of Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters (Djibouti v. France) Judgement 4 June 2008
Primary treaties interpreted: Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation concluded between France and Djibouti, 27 June 1977 and Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters between Djibouti and France, 27 September 1986.
On 9 January 2006, the Republic of Djibouti filed an Application against the French Republic in respect of a dispute: "concern[ing] the refusal by the French governmental and judicial authorities to execute an international letter rogatory regarding the transmission to the judicial authorities in Djibouti of the record relating to the investigation in the Case against X for the murder of Bernard Borrel, in violation of the Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters between the [Djiboutian] Government and the [French] Government, of 27 September 1986, and in breach of other international obligations borne by [France] to . . . Djibouti" (…) (and in) a violation of the Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation concluded between France and Djibouti on 27 June 1977. (…)
(Regarding the) Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation between France and Djibouti of 27 June 1977 (…) the Court concluded that "the fields of co-operation envisaged in th[at] Treaty do not include co-operation in the judicial field" and thus that the above-mentioned relevant rules imposed no concrete obligations in this case.
(…) Under that (1986) Convention, judicial co-operation is envisaged, including the requesting and granting of "letters rogatory" (usually the passing, for judicial purposes, of information held by a party). The Convention also provides for exceptions to this envisaged co-operation. Since the French judicial authorities refused to transmit the requested case file, a key question in the case was whether that refusal fell within the permitted exceptions. Also at issue was whether France had complied with the provisions of the 1986 Convention in other respects. The Court held that the reasons given by the French investigating judge for refusing the request for mutual assistance fell within the scope of Article 2 (c) of the Convention, which entitles the requested State to refuse to execute a letter rogatory if it considers that that execution is likely to prejudice its sovereignty, its security, its ordre public or other of its essential interests. The Court did however conclude that, as no reasons were given in the letter dated 6 June 2005, whereby France informed Djibouti of its refusal to execute the letter rogatory presented by the latter on 3 November 2004, France had failed to comply with its international obligations under Article 17 of the 1986 Convention."
NB: The Court's jurisdiction in this case was established by forum prorogatum.
When submitting a dispute to the Court, a State may propose to base the Court's jurisdiction upon a consent yet to be given or manifested by the State against which the application is made, in reliance on article 38, paragraph 5, of the Rules of Court. If the latter State gives its consent, the Court's jurisdiction is established and the new case is entered in the General List on the date that that consent is given – a situation known as forum prorogatum. See Annual Report of the ICJ (2015 – 2016).
France consented to the Court establishing its jurisdiction, and held that France's consent was "valid only for the purposes of the case, within the meaning of Article 38, paragraph 5, i.e., in respect of the dispute forming the subject of the Application and strictly within the limits of the claims formulated therein". This was the first time that the Court had to decide on the merits of a dispute brought under Rules relating to Article 38(5) (para 63). On the background to the adoption of forum prorogatum see Commentary to the Statute of the International Court of Justice (excerpts available online) and Lee, Sienho, Forum Prorogatum Returns to the International Court of Justice (full article available online).
The jurisdiction of the Court is based on the consent of States, under the conditions expressed therein. For the Court to exercise jurisdiction on the basis of forum prorogatum, "the element of consent must be either explicit or clearly to be deduced from the relevant conduct of a State." In other words, the consent "must be certain". The attitude of the respondent State must "be capable of being regarded as 'an unequivocal indication' of the desire of that State to accept the Court's jurisdiction in a 'voluntary and indisputable' manner." (see paragraphs 60-64)
Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions between Qatar and Bahrain (Qatar v. Bahrain) Judgment, 16 March 2001.
Primary treaty interpreted: Certain bilateral agreements between Qatar and Bahrain concluded in December 1987 and December 1990.
"On 8 July 1991, Qatar filed in the Registry of the Court an Application instituting proceedings against Bahrain in respect of certain disputes between the two States relating to sovereignty over the Hawar Islands, sovereign rights over the shoals of Dibal and Qit'at Jaradah and the delimitation of their maritime areas.
Qatar founded the jurisdiction of the Court upon certain agreements between the Parties stated to have been concluded in December 1987 and December 1990, the subject and scope of the commitment to accept that jurisdiction being determined by a formula proposed by Bahrain to Qatar in October 1988 and accepted by the latter State in December 1990 (the "Bahraini formula"). As Bahrain contested the basis of jurisdiction invoked by Qatar, the Parties agreed that the written proceedings should first be addressed to the questions of jurisdiction and admissibility. After a Memorial of the Applicant and Counter-Memorial of the Respondent had been filed, the Court directed that a Reply and a Rejoinder be filed by each of them, respectively.
On 1 July 1994 the Court delivered a first Judgment on the above-mentioned questions. It took the view that both the exchanges of letters of December 1987 between the King of Saudi Arabia and the Amir of Qatar, and between the King of Saudi Arabia and the Amir of Bahrain, and the document entitled "Minutes" and signed at Doha in December 1990 constituted international agreements creating rights and obligations for the Parties ; and that by the terms of those agreements they had undertaken to submit to the Court the whole of the dispute between them.
In the latter regard, the Court pointed out that the Application of Qatar did not cover some of the constitutive elements that the Bahraini formula was supposed to cover. It accordingly decided to give the Parties the opportunity to submit to it "the whole of the dispute" as circumscribed by the Minutes of 1990 and that formula, while fixing 30 November 1994 as the time-limit within which the Parties were, jointly or separately, to take action to that end. On the prescribed date, Qatar filed a document entitled "Act", which referred to the absence of an agreement between the Parties to act jointly and declared that it was submitting "the whole of the dispute" to the Court. On the same day, Bahrain filed a document entitled "Report" in which it indicated, inter alia, that the submission to the Court of "the whole of the dispute" must be "consensual in character, that is, a matter of agreement between the Parties".
By observations submitted to the Court at a later time, Bahrain indicated that the unilateral "Act" of Qatar did not "create that jurisdiction [of the Court] or effect a valid submission in the absence of Bahrain's consent".
By a second Judgment on the questions of jurisdiction and admissibility, delivered on 15 February 1995, the Court found that it had jurisdiction to adjudicate upon the dispute submitted to it between Qatar and Bahrain, and that the Application of Qatar, as formulated on 30 November 1994, was admissible. The Court, having proceeded to an examination of the two paragraphs constituting the Doha Agreement, found that, in that Agreement, the Parties had reasserted their consent to its jurisdiction and had defined the object of the dispute in accordance with the Bahraini formula ; it further found that the Doha Agreement permitted the unilateral seisin and that it was now seised of the whole of the dispute. (…)
Territorial Dispute (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya/Chad) Judgment, 3 February 1994
Primary treaties interpreted: Agreement entered between Libya and Chad in Algiers, 31 August 1989 and the Franco-Libyan Treaty of Friendship and Good Neighbourliness, 10 August 1955
This case related to the delimitation of the land boundary line between Libya and Chad. On 3 September 1990, Chad initiated proceedings against the Libya based upon (1) an Agreement entered between them in Algiers on 31 August 1989 and, (2) subsidiarily, on the Franco-Libyan Treaty of Friendship and Good Neighbourliness of 10 August 1955. In respect of the latter agreement,
"(…) referring to the provision of the 1955 Treaty according to which it had been concluded for a period of 20 years and could be terminated unilaterally, the Court indicated that that Treaty had to be taken to have determined a permanent frontier, and observed that, when a boundary has been the subject of agreement, its continued existence is not dependent upon the continuing life of the Treaty under which that boundary was agreed (emphasis added)." See ICJ Summary here and here.
Elettronica Sicula S.p.A. (ELSI) (United States of America v. Italy) Judgment, 20 July 1989
Primary treaties interpreted: Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation of 1948 and the Agreement Supplementing the above Treaty.
On 6 February 1987, the United States instituted proceedings against Italy in respect of a dispute arising out of the requisition by the Government of Italy of the plant and related assets of Raytheon-Elsi S.p.A., an Italian company producing electronic components and previously known as Elettronica Sicula S.p.A. (ELSI), which was stated to have been 100 per cent owned by two United States corporations (…)
On 20 July 1989, the Chamber delivered a Judgment in which it rejected the objection raised by Italy and said that the latter had not committed any of the breaches alleged by the United States of the bilateral Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation of 1948, or of the Agreement Supplementing that Treaty. The United States principally reproached the Respondent (a) with having effected an unlawful requisition of the ELSI plant, thus depriving the shareholders of their direct right to proceed to the liquidation of the company's assets under normal conditions ; (b) with having been incapable of preventing the occupation of the plant by the employees ; (c) with having failed to reach any decision as to the legality of the requisition during a period of sixteen months ; and (d) with having intervened in the bankruptcy proceedings, with the result that it had purchased ELSI at a price well below its true market value.
After a detailed consideration of the facts alleged and the relevant conventional provisions, the Chamber found that the Respondent had not breached the 1948 Treaty and the Agreement supplementing that Treaty in the manner claimed by the Applicant, and rejected the claim for reparation made by the United States.
Application for Review of Judgment No. 333 of the United Nations Administrative Tribunal Advisory Opinion, 27 May 1987.
Primary treaty interpreted: UN Charter (Article 101(3))
Summary provided in the ICJ website:
This case concerns a refusal by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to renew the appointment of a staff member of the Secretariat beyond the date of expiry of his fixed-term contract, the reasons given being that the staff member had been seconded from a national administration, that his secondment had come to an end and that his contract with the United Nations was limited to the duration of the secondment. In a judgment delivered on 8 June 1984, the Administrative Tribunal rejected the staff member's appeal against the Secretary-General's refusal. The staff member in question applied for a review of the judgment to the Committee on Applications for Review of Administrative Tribunal Judgements, which requested the Court to give an advisory opinion on the merits of that decision. In its Advisory Opinion, rendered on 27 May 1987, the Court found that the Administrative Tribunal had not failed to exercise jurisdiction vested in it by not responding to the question whether a legal impediment existed to the further employment in the United Nations of the applicant after the expiry of his fixed-term contract, and that it did not err on any question of law relating to the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations. In that regard, the Court found that the Tribunal had established that there had been "reasonable consideration" of the applicant's case, and by implication that the Secretary-General had not been under a misapprehension as to the effect of secondment, and that the provision of Article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter must have been present in the mind of the Tribunal when it considered the question. In the view of the Court, those findings could not be disturbed on the ground of error on a question of law relating to the provisions of the Charter.
Applicability of the Obligation to Arbitrate under Section 21 of the United Nations Headquarters Agreement of 26 June 1947 Advisory opinion, 26 April 1988
Primary treaty interpreted: Agreement between the United Nations and the United States of America regarding the Headquarters of the United Nations
On 2 March 1988, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution whereby it requested the Court to give an advisory opinion on the question of whether the United States of America, as a party to the Agreement between the United Nations and the United States of America regarding the Headquarters of the United Nations, was under an obligation to enter into arbitration in accordance with Section 21 of the Agreement. That resolution had been adopted in the wake of the signature and imminent entry into force of a law of the United States, entitled Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Title X of which established certain prohibitions regarding the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), inter alia, a prohibition "to establish or maintain an office, headquarters, premises or other facilities or establishments within the jurisdiction of the United States at the behest or direction of, or with funds provided by the Palestine Liberation Organization".
The PLO, in accordance with the Headquarters Agreement, had a Permanent Mission to the United Nations. The Secretary-General of the United Nations invoked the dispute settlement procedure set out in Section 21 of the Agreement and proposed that the negotiations phase of the procedure commence on 20 January 1988.
The United States, for its part, informed the United Nations that it was not in a position and was not willing to enter formally into that dispute settlement procedure, in that it was still evaluating the situation and as the Secretary-General had sought assurances that the arrangements in force at the time for the Permanent Observer Mission of the Palestine Liberation Organization would not be curtailed or otherwise affected.
On 11 February 1988, the United Nations informed the Department of State that it had chosen its arbitrator and pressed the United States to do the same. The Court, having regard to the fact that the decision to request an advisory opinion had been made "taking into account the time constraint", accelerated its procedure (…)
The Court rendered its Advisory Opinion on 26 April 1988. It began by engaging in a detailed review of the events that took place before and after the filing of the request for an advisory opinion, in order to determine whether there was, between the United Nations and the United States, a dispute of the type contemplated in the Headquarters Agreement.
In so doing, the Court pointed out that its sole task was to determine whether the United States was obliged to enter into arbitration under that Agreement, not to decide whether the measures adopted by the United States in regard to the PLO Observer Mission did or did not run counter to that Agreement.
The Court pointed out, inter alia, that the United States had stated that "it had not yet concluded that a dispute existed" between it and the United Nations "because the legislation in question had not been implemented". Then, subsequently, referring to "the current dispute over the status of the PLO Observer Mission" it had expressed the view that arbitration would be premature.
After initiating litigation in its domestic courts, the United States, in its written statement, had informed the Court of its belief that arbitration would not be "appropriate or timely". After saying that it could not allow considerations as to what might be "appropriate" to prevail over the obligations deriving from Section 21, the Court found that the opposing attitudes of the United Nations and the United States showed the existence of a dispute, whatever the date on which it might be deemed to have arisen.
It further qualified that dispute as a dispute concerning the application of the Headquarters Agreement, and then found that, taking into account the United States' attitude, the Secretary-General had in the circumstances exhausted such possibilities of negotiation as were open to him, nor had any "other agreed mode of settlement" within the meaning of Section 21 of the Agreement been contemplated by the United Nations and the United States.
The Court accordingly concluded that the United States was bound to respect the obligation to enter into arbitration, under Section 21. In so doing, it recalled the fundamental principle of international law that international law prevailed over domestic law, a principle long endorsed by a body of judicial decisions.
Application for Review of Judgment No. 273 of the United Nations Administrative Tribunal Advisory Opinion, 20 July 1982
Primary treaty interpreted: UN Charter
A former staff member of the United Nations Secretariat had challenged the Secretary-General's refusal to pay him a repatriation grant unless he produced evidence of having relocated upon retirement. By a judgment of 15 May 1981, the United Nations Administrative Tribunal had found that the staff member was entitled to receive the grant and, therefore, to compensation for the injury sustained through its non-payment. The injury had been assessed at the amount of the repatriation grant of which payment had been refused.
The United States Government addressed an application for review of this judgment to the Committee on Applications for Review of Administrative Tribunal Judgements, and the Committee requested an advisory opinion of the Court on the correctness of the decision in question.
In its Advisory Opinion of 20 July 1982, the Court, after pointing out that a number of procedural and substantive irregularities had been committed, decided nevertheless to comply with the Committee's request, whose wording it interpreted as really seeking a determination as to whether the Administrative Tribunal had erred on a question of law relating to the provisions of the United Nations Charter, or had exceeded its jurisdiction or competence. As to the first point, the Court said that its proper role was not to retry the case already dealt with by the Tribunal, and that it need not involve itself in the question of the proper interpretation of United Nations Staff Regulations and Rules further than was strictly necessary in order to judge whether the interpretation adopted by the Tribunal had been in contradiction with the provisions of the Charter. Having noted that the Tribunal had only applied what it had found to be the relevant Staff Regulations and Staff Rules made under the authority of the General Assembly, the Court found that the Tribunal had not erred on a question of law relating to the provisions of the Charter. As to the second point, the Court considered that the Tribunal's jurisdiction included the scope of Staff Regulations and Rules and that it had not exceeded its jurisdiction or competence.
Interpretation of the Agreement of 25 March 1951 between the WHO and Egypt Advisory Opinion, 20 December 1980
Treaty interpreted: Agreement of 25 March 1951 between the World Health Organization and Egypt
Having considered a possible transfer from Alexandria of the World Health Organization's Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean Region, the World Health Assembly in May 1980 submitted a request to the Court for an advisory opinion on the following questions :
"1. Are the negotiation and notice provisions of Section 37 of the Agreement of 25 March 1951 between the World Health Organization and Egypt applicable in the event that either party to the Agreement wishes to have the Regional Office transferred from the territory of Egypt ?
2. If so, what would be the legal responsibilities of both the World Health Organization and Egypt, with regard to the Regional Office in Alexandria, during the two-year period between notice and termination of the Agreement ?"
The Court expressed the opinion that, in the event of a transfer of the seat of the Regional Office to another country, the WHO and Egypt were under mutual obligation to consult together in good faith as to the conditions and modalities of the transfer, and to negotiate the various arrangements needed to effect the transfer with a minimum of prejudice to the work of the Organization and to the interests of Egypt.
The party wishing to effect the transfer had a duty, despite the specific period of notice indicated in the 1951 Agreement, to give a reasonable period of notice to the other party, and during this period the legal responsibilities of the WHO and of Egypt would be to fulfil in good faith their mutual obligations as set out above.
See Brölmann, "The Significance of the 1980 ICJ Advisory Opinion Interpretation of the Agreement of 25 March 1951 between the Who and Egypt" (2015) (paper available online). "The 1980 WHO Advisory Opinion constitutes a point of reference when it comes to enunciating the sources of obligations binding upon international organizations. It is also authoritative as it elaborates on the general legal obligations governing the relation between an organization and its host state – a relation which in this case possibly for the first time is framed by the Court as one between legal equals."
Posted in Uncategorized on August 19, 2017 by Dakshinie Ruwanthika Gunaratne. Leave a comment
← II. ICJ Cases relating to Self-Defense and other matters related to the Use of Force (1984 – 2017)
IV. ICJ Cases Relating to Sovereignty, Sovereign Equality, Non-Intervention, Statehood, and Consular and Diplomatic Relations (1984 – 2017) →


Nat King Cole/Nelson Riddle "Wild Is Love" Hardbound Cover w/color booklet 9:00 o'clock logo. Capitol WAK 1392 This is a golden age recording.
Wild Is Love is a 1960 concept album by the American singer and pianist Nat King Cole, arranged by Nelson Riddle. The album chronicles a narrator's attempts to pick up various women before he finds love at the conclusion of the album. The album formed the basis for an unsuccessful musical, I'm With You, that starred Cole and was intended as a potential Broadway vehicle for him. A television special also called Wild Is Love resulted from the album, and was shown in Canada in late 1961. The television special was not shown in the United States until 1964 due to the brief presence of physical contact between the African American Cole and a performer of Canadian European descent, Larry Kert, that was seen as offensive by commercial sponsors.
The album was released at the advent of the sexual revolution, Cole's biographer Daniel Mark Epstein would subsequently write of the album that "The lyrics tell the story of a man's search for romantic love-its excitements and frustrations, joys and sorrows-with a forward, blunt emphasis on carnal lust, and an edge of cynicism that would have been wholly offensive only a few years earlier".
Wild Is Love was one of six albums nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year at the 3rd Annual Grammy Awards in 1961, where it lost to Bob Newhart's The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart.
The string background to Cole's narration on the album was written by Ralph Carmichael, and marked the start of Carmichael's association with Cole as his work with Riddle waned. Cole had felt some rivalry with his fellow Capitol Records artist Frank Sinatra whose albums increasingly dominated Riddle's creative output. One of Nat's most successful recordings, it reached #4 on Billboards Top LP chart.


East Dane Designer Men's Fashion. The concept of the Mother Goddess in the West--the meek, ever-loving, patiently suffering female--is very different than the image of Kali in the Hindu pantheon. Please enter the message.


We spend most of January and February hoping Spring will arrive soon. With the easter eggs already on the shelves and articles about SS18 trends in magazines, you're easily fooled into thinking it's already arrived - but sadly that's just not true. But don't dwell on the fact that's it still winter, instead focus your energy on building the perfect wardrobe for these last months of cold with 7 fabulous staples.
The comfiest of knitwear designs this season, this jumper is made for the days when you want to feel 'snuggled up' in your outfit. Wear it tucked into a pair of skinny jeans and layered with an oversized scarf for ultimate cosiness.
Loved by Fashion Editors for years, the cross body style is not only practical (*mum comment*) but uber chic. This bag is everywhere at the moment offering a variety of styles from minimal to heavily embroidered.
It's been a staple throughout Autumn and Winter so if a checked blazer isn't already part of your wardrobe, what have you been doing? This becomes such a versatile day-to-night piece by swapping your plain tee for a silk cami top.
Whether you're a silver or rose gold jewellery girl, put your preferences aside and fully embrace the industry's current love of gold jewellery. Thanks to brands like Missoma London, the jewellery options are endless and bold.
Arguably the most relaxed style of denim available at the moment, the straight leg jean is perfect for any occasion this season. Make the most of light wash before a darker indigo colour palette of SS18 replaces it.
The grown-up sister of the biker jacket, the double-breasted jacket is a lovely addition to your coat collection. Regardless of if you choose a cropped or thigh-grazing version, the style is timeless so you'll be able to wear season after season.
This style of boot elevates any outfit with its minimal silhouette and luxe material. For the more confident of heel wearers, the thin stiletto heel is a must. However, for the more reserved the thicker, blocker heel is the way to go.


The Cornell Historic Monograph Collection consists of digital surrogates for materials that were part of a joint study involving Digital Preservation between Cornell University and the Xerox Corporation.
Begun in 1990, a process was developed where brittle and decaying books were digitally scanned, using prototype equipment co-developed by Cornell and the Xerox Corporation (the CLASS scanner) and stored as 600dpi, bitonal TIFF images, compressed with ITU Group 4 compression, on digital platters on an EPOCH "jukebox" digital server.
Facsimiles of these books were generated and the books were returned to the shelves. The images were available online using specially developed clients in Unix, MAC and PC platforms. These clients were developed at Library Technology at Cornell University by William Turner III, David Fielding and Chris Stuart.
Of the 456 General Monographs that make up the Historic Monograph Collection, 441 that are not covered by copyright protection are being made available for online viewing.


text:
Snooping Tucson Hospital Workers Fired In Records Breach
By Scott Hensley
Published January 14, 2011 at 9:51 AM MST
Just about everyone we know is fascinated by the remarkable medical saga unfolding at University Medical Center in Tucson, Ariz.
Since last Saturday's tragic shooting, we've been hanging on every detail about Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' condition and the status of the dozen other people injured. At a Friday media briefing, neurosurgeon G. Michael Lemole Jr. said of Giffords, "We're very encouraged she's making all the right moves."
But some workers at the hospital have let their curiosity get the best of them. Earlier this week, management at University Medical Center fired three employees and let go a nurse working for a contractor because they'd snooped on confidential computerized medical records of patients injured in the shooting.
The hospital released a statement late Wednesday, saying the people violated a "zero tolerance policy on patient privacy violations." The hospital notified the patients' families about the breach and said nothing from the records appears to have been made public.
Computerized systems for patients charts can help hospitals do a better job with care. But they also make the protection of information from prying eyes harder.
When celebrities become patients, the temptation can be too great. A few years ago, details of Farah Fawcett's cancer diagnosis and care at UCLA Medical Center leaked and was published in the National Enquirer. An investigation by the hospital "found that one employee had accessed her records more often than her own doctors," the Los Angeles Times reported.
Later that woman, an administrative worker, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of breaking federal medical privacy laws for commercial purposes, but she died of cancer before sentencing, according to the Times.
The medical files of other celebrities have been breached, including those of Britney Spears on two occasions at UCLA facilities and Maria Shriver's, too.
To catch inside snoops, some hospitals now create fictitious celebrity medical records as bait for the untrustworthy. Hospitals computer specialists then monitor who access the files, reports HealthLeaders Media.
Scott Hensley
Scott Hensley edits stories about health, biomedical research and pharmaceuticals for NPR's Science desk. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he has led the desk's reporting on the development of vaccines against the coronavirus.
See stories by Scott Hensley


text:
It's Augenstein, Ogletree in U.S. Amateur final
Inbee Park hopes to play her way back to the Olympics
2mLisa D. Mickey
Henderson, Park tied for lead in LPGA opener
Laporta cards 63 to leap into Abu Dhabi lead
Els struggles to 72 in Champions debut in Hawaii
One-armed amateur aces hole on PGA Tour stop
Ramirez handles wind, leads Latin American Am
Mickelson struggles with driver in season debut
Kang leads LPGA Tour opener with 1st-round 63
Koepka trails Norris, Paratore in Abu Dhabi
Koepka jabs back at DeChambeau abs barbs
1dBob Harig
Brittany Lincicome is back and ready to go, with baby in tow
1dLisa D. Mickey
LPGA season preview: Storylines to watch
Locals look to test their game against world's elite at Singapore Open
2dGary Koh
Mickelson sets goal to make Ryder Cup team
Knowing when you can't play golf with the young guys anymore
2dJosh Weinfuss
PGA Tour's pace-of-play policy tees off in April
Player confidential: The truth about slow play in golf and how to fix it
3dMichael Collins
Koepka returns after re-tearing patella tendon
Aaron Stewart finds golf connection through LPGA
3dSandra Harwitt
PGA Tour to shift Byron Nelson from Trinity Forest
Smith takes Sony in playoff after Steele collapse
PINEHURST, N.C. -- Andy Ogletree took a peek at the bracket before the U.S. Amateur quarterfinals and made a prediction to his caddie: He would face John Augenstein in the final.
Augenstein beat William Holcomb V 3 and 2 in one semifinal Saturday, and Ogletree topped teenager and fellow Mississippian Cohen Trolio 3 and 1 in the other.
"I just thought we were the best two players left, the most experienced," Ogletree said of his prediction.
They will meet Sunday in a 36-hole final split over two courses, starting on Pinehurst's renovated No. 4 course and finishing at No. 2, the site of three men's U.S. Opens and the 2008 U.S. Amateur.
For all the buzz about the young players in the field -- including the 17-year-old Trolio -- both finalists are 21-year-old college seniors with match-play experience.
Tiger's bogey-free 67 his best round since June
Pieters takes one-shot lead at Czech Masters
All the reasons why the FedEx Cup means so much this weekend
"I just kind of trusted that the golf would take care of itself," Ogletree said. "You can't really think a match ahead. You have to take one match at a time, and I've done a really good job of that. One shot at a time, one match at a time. I actually looked at the brackets and told [caddie Devin Stanton] I think we'll be playing John. It's there, and we're ready."
Augenstein -- from Owensboro, Kentucky and Vanderbilt -- was the highest-ranked of the four semifinalists and, at No. 38 in the world amateur ranking, the only one in the top 100.
"I've been through this match-play thing too many times to assume that somebody's going to make it just because of their name," Augenstein said. "Teams get beat in college [by opponents] that aren't as good, and players get beat all the time [by opponents] that aren't as good. ... People get beat in match play."
He made par on his first 15 holes and, after briefly trailing for the first time in five rounds of match play, went 2 up with a par on the par-4 14th and ended it with a birdie on the 16th.
That earned him a spot opposite Ogletree, the Georgia Tech player from Little Rock, Mississippi, who ended Trolio's bid to become the youngest finalist in U.S. Amateur history.
Ogletree won the first hole and never trailed after that, but his lead was never larger than 2 up until the end, and Trolio closed within a hole with his par on 14. After they halved No. 15, Ogletree won the 16th with a par to Trolio's double-bogey and wrapped it up with a birdie -- just his second of the day -- on the par-3 17th.
Playing nine days after his 17th birthday, Trolio would have eclipsed Sung Yoon Kim, who was 17 years, 3 months, 5 days when he reached the championship match 20 years ago. Trolio, from West Point, Mississippi, was the only player in the match-play field of 64 without a world amateur ranking because he has not played in an event that would yield a ranking the past two years.
"It proves to everybody else that I can compete here," Trolio said, "and also it proves to me, more than anybody else, that I have what it takes to compete."
Augenstein beat two opponents in the top 10 of the amateur ranking in the early rounds, and neither he nor Trolio had trailed during four rounds of match play -- until the semifinals, when both fell behind early in their matches.
Unlike Trolio, Augenstein regained the lead. He went ahead for good late on the front nine, breaking a tie by winning Nos. 6 and 7 and moving 2 up on Holcomb, a Texan and 21-year-old senior at Sam Houston State.
"It hasn't really sunk in that it's over," Holcomb said. "I don't even think it's sunk in that I got as far as I did."


Hours: Monday–Friday 9 a.m.–5 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m.–5 p.m. in February and March, and July and August, closed Sunday and on federal holidays.
Besides art exhibitions, the SVCA presents art classes for families, children and adults, a concert series, lectures, readings and a film series that touch on issues relevant to our times. Gallery hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat.