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Compiled by academics at three UK universities, this report presents a profile of participants in Extinction Rebellion’s (XR) mass civil disobedience actions in London in April and October 2019. The report is compiled from three datasets: a protest survey of participants in each of these two XR actions, with 303 short face to face interviews and 232 mailed back questionnaires in total; observational analysis of court hearings of XR activists charged with minor public order offences following the April 2019 action, totalling a further 213 activists; and data from a previous survey of participants in two climate change marches 2009/10, which we use as a benchmark for interpreting our XR survey.

In this chapter we analyze cases where social movement activists are prosecuted in the courts for protest actions. The courthouse is a significant arena for social movement strategy, a symbolic site for the arbitration of collective disputes, the legitimization of political action, and the production of social meaning; the court is “one of society’s most sacred institutions since its role in defining, interpreting and enforcing the law puts it in close proximity to the moral basis of society” (Antonio, 1972: 291-292). The outcomes of trials depend on the organization of the criminal justice system but also the responses and strategies of multiple other players, inside and outside the court, including social movement activists, allies and supporters. In common with the other chapters in this volume, our argument here is about “breaking down the state,” about thinking through the relationships of power and agency that define the interactions between state and nonstate players. We seek to go beyond conceptualizations of state-movement relationships which might cast criminal trials merely as “state repression,” setting out the architecture of the court as an arena for political interaction and tactical choice, identifying the players who act within it, and arguing that more attention be given to the courts in analyses of protest action.

A hermetic wafer-level Cu-Sn solid-liquid interdiffusion (SLID) bonding was investigated to explore the sensitivity of selected process parameters with regard to voiding and possible reduction of strength. Little or no variation was observed in the void density as a result of modifying the plated Sn-thickness, the storage time between plating and bonding, the bonding tool pressure, or the thermal budget during bonding. All shear tested samples showed excellent shear strength, with an average of 110-164 MPa. Some statistically significant differences in shear strength were found between the varied process parameters. However, the differences were too small to be critical for the application. Analysis of fracture surfaces showed that shear strengths in the lower range corresponded to fracture between the adhesion layer (TiW) and the silicon cap, while shear strengths in the higher range corresponded to fracture in the Cu3Sn formed during the bonding. The results indicate that the bonding process is robust with regard to the studied process parameters.

Hermetic wafer-level encapsulation of atmosphere sensitive Micro-Electric-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) devices is vital to achieve a high yield, a high performance and a long operating lifetime. An interesting and gradually more employed packaging technique is flux-less wafer-level copper-tin (Cu-Sn) solid-liquid interdiffusion (SLID) bonding. The process is being employed for several next generation high performance infrared bolometers. The hermeticity and the reliability of the bond are studied through the key parameters: probability for void percolation, conversion into intermetallic compounds and residual stress using both characterization and modelling. Characterization using Scanning Acoustic Microscopy (SAM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) and optical microscopy showed different defects in the Cu-Sn bond in case of non-optimized process settings. Defects observed are incomplete conversion into the targeted intermetallic Cu3Sn and voiding. Incomplete conversion influences the thermo-mechanical and environmental robustness of the bond negatively due to less favourable material properties of the intermediately formed Cu 6Sn5 in comparison to the targeted Cu3Sn. Voiding may result in lower thermo-mechanical robustness of the bond and loss of hermeticity. The probability for percolation through voiding is calculated. The reliability of the Cu-Sn bond is also studied using a Finite Element Model (FEM). The calculated residual stress in the Cu-Sn bond caused by volumetric shrinkage during formation of the IMCs is significant and should be taken into account during design to avoid a negative influence on the reliability of the bond. © 2013 IMAPS.

International audience; The 27 February 2010 Maule, Chile (Mw=8.8) earthquake is one of the best instrumentally observed subduction zone megathrust events. Here we present locations, magnitudes and cumulative equivalent moment of the first $2 months of aftershocks, recorded on a temporary network deployed within 2 weeks of the occurrence of the main-shock. Using automatically-determined onset times and a back projection approach for event association, we are able to detect over 30,000 events in the time period analyzed. To further increase the location accuracy, we systematically searched for potential S-wave arrivals and events were located in a regional 2D velocity model. Additionally, we calculated regional moment tensors to gain insight into the deformation history of the aftershock sequence. We find that the aftershock seismicity is concentrated between 40 and 140 km distance from the trench over a depth range of 10 to 35 km. Focal mechanisms indicate a predominance of thrust faulting, with occasional normal faulting events. Increased activity is seen in the outer-rise region of the Nazca plate, predominantly in the northern part of the rupture area. Further down-dip, a second band of clustered seismicity, showing mainly thrust motion, is located at depths of 40-45 km. By comparing recent published mainshock source inversions with our aftershock distribution, we discriminate slip models based on the assumption that aftershocks occur in areas of rapid transition between high and low slip, surrounding high-slip regions of the mainshock.

This article compares the tactic of trashing genetically modified crops in activist campaigns in Britain and France. In Britain, most crop trashing was carried out covertly, while in France most activists undertook open, public actions. In seeking an explanation for this, the article shows that the analysis of political opportunities, dominant in comparative studies of social movements, can only take us so far. While it helps explain the occurrence of direct action, it is much less useful in explaining the tactical differences between each country. It is argued that a fuller explanation requires an understanding of how action was shaped by different activist traditions. In France, action was staged as a demonstration of serious, responsible, collective Republican citizenship; in the United Kingdom, activists combined a sceptical view of legality developing from anarchist individualism with an explicitly non-threatening, playful, ethos. The article concludes that a focus on activist traditions can provide an effective bridge between structural and cultural approaches to understanding the determinants of social movement action.

Initially, the devastating M_w 7.0, 12 January 2010 Haiti earthquake seemed to involve straightforward accommodation of oblique relative motion between the Caribbean and North American plates along the Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault zone. Here, we combine seismological observations, geologic field data and space geodetic measurements to show that, instead, the rupture process involved slip on multiple faults. Primary surface deformation was driven by rupture on blind thrust faults with only minor, deep, lateral slip along or near the main Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault zone; thus the event only partially relieved centuries of accumulated left-lateral strain on a small part of the plate-boundary system. Together with the predominance of shallow off-fault thrusting, the lack of surface deformation implies that remaining shallowshear strain will be released in future surface-rupturing earthquakes on the Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault zone, as occurred in inferred Holocene and probable historic events. We suggest that the geological signature of this earthquake—broad warping and coastal deformation rather than surface rupture along the main fault zone—will not be easily recognized by standard palaeoseismic studies. We conclude that similarly complex earthquakes in tectonic environments that accommodate both translation and convergence—such as the San Andreas fault through the Transverse Ranges of California—may be missing from the prehistoric earthquake record.

This paper presents a novel self-organising neural network. It has been developed for use as a simplified model of cortical development. Unlike many other models of topological map formation all synaptic weights start at zero strength (so that synaptogenesis might be modelled). In addition, the algorithm works with the same format of encoding for both inputs to and outputs from the network (so that the transfer and recoding of information between cortical regions might be modelled).

This paper shows how the relationship between two arrays of artificial neurons, representing different cortical regions, can be learned. The algorithm enables each neural network to self-organise into a topological map of the domain it represents at the same time as the relationship between these maps is found. Unlike previous methods learning is achieved without a separate training phase; the algorithm which learns the mapping is also that which performs the mapping.

Within the context of two sets of robotic experiments we have performed, we examine some representational and algorithmic issues that need to be addressed in order to equip robots with the capacity to imitate. We suggest that some of the di culties might be eased by placing imitation architectures within a wider social context.