It is hard to imagine a better choice of Makar

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The existence of a bending rigidity for a hard sphere liquid near a curved hard wall: Helfrich or Hadwiger?

In the context of Rosenfeld's Fundamental Measure Theory, we show that the bending rigidity is not equal to zero for a hard-sphere fluid in contact with a curved hard wall. The implication is that the Hadwiger Theorem does not hold in this case and the surface free energy is given by the Helfrich expansion instead. The value obtained for the bending rigidity is (1) an order of magnitude smaller than the bending constant associated with Gaussian curvature, (2) changes sign as a function of the fluid volume fraction, (3) is independent of the choice for the location of the hard wall.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Physical Review

Customary International Law: An Instrument Choice Perspective

Contemporary international lawmaking is characterized by a rapid growth of “soft law” instruments. Interdisciplinary studies have followed suit, purporting to frame the key question states face as a choice between soft and “hard” law. But this literature focuses on only one form of hard law—treaties—and cooperation through formal institutions. Customary international law (CIL) is barely mentioned. Other scholars dismiss CIL as increasingly irrelevant or even obsolete. Entirely missing from these debates is any consideration of whether and when states might prefer custom over treaties or soft law

A General Effective Theory for Dense Quark Matter

A general effective action for quark matter at nonzero temperature and/or nonzero density is derived. Irrelevant quark modes are distinguished from relevant quark modes, and hard from soft gluon modes, by introducing two separate cut-offs in momentum space, one for quarks, $\Lambda_q$, and one for gluons, $\Lambda_g$. Irrelevant quark modes and hard gluon modes are then exactly integrated out in the functional integral representation of the QCD partition function. Depending on the specific choice for $\Lambda_q$ and $\Lambda_g$, the resulting effective action contains well-known effective actions for hot and/or dense quark matter, for instance the ``Hard Thermal Loop'' (HTL) or the ``Hard Dense Loop'' (HDL) action, as well as the high-density effective theory proposed by Hong and others.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, contribution to proceedings of SEWM 200

Who done it, actually? Dissociative identity disorder for the criminologist

Through the analysis of clinical examples, the paper explores how decisions are made by a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), the notions of choice and ‘competent reasoning’, and the practical and ethical ways for interviewing a person with DID. Abstract Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is examined in this paper from the perspective of its relevance to the criminologist. As this psychiatric condition is linked to severe and prolonged childhood abuse, accounts of DID patients inevitably involve reports of serious crimes, in which the person was the victim, perpetrator or witness. These reports can thus contain crucial information for criminal investigations by the police or for court proceedings. However, due to the person’s dissociation, such reports are often very confusing, hard to follow, hard to believe and difficult to obtain. They also frequently state that the person had ‘no choice’, a thorny notion for the criminologist (as well as for the clinician). Through the analysis of clinical examples, the paper explores how decisions are made by a person with DID, the notions of choice and ‘competent reasoning’, and the practical and ethical ways for interviewing a person with DID

Loop equations for the semiclassical 2-matrix model with hard edges

The 2-matrix models can be defined in a setting more general than polynomial potentials, namely, the semiclassical matrix model. In this case, the potentials are such that their derivatives are rational functions, and the integration paths for eigenvalues are arbitrary homology classes of paths for which the integral is convergent. This choice includes in particular the case where the integration path has fixed endpoints, called hard edges. The hard edges induce boundary contributions in the loop equations. The purpose of this article is to give the loop equations in that semicassical setting.Comment: Latex, 20 page

Substitution or complementarity between Information "soft" and information "hard": why and which effect on bank profitability?

The Basel II committee set up directives encouraging banks to use internal scores in order to assess the risk of their customers. This new form of information competes with the existing ones. SMEs are most concerned by these new stakes, due to the lack of transparency. The aim of this paper is to understand the determinants of the choice between substitution and complementarity between the two types of information: "soft" and "hard", to test a potential effect of this choice on the banking performance and to describe which variables are involved in the decision-making process. The originality of this work is to try to quantify the information costs and to use it as a variable which is affecting the adopted choice.Basel directives, "soft" information, "hard" information, credit decision-making process, bank performance, Bank-SMEs relationship.