Comments on the current developments concerning the Polish Constitutional Tribunal

Nowelizacja ustawy o Trybunale Konstytucyjnym uchwalona 22 grudnia 2015 r. budzi liczne wątpliwości krajowych i zagranicznych ośrodków naukowych, medialnych i politycznych. Obawy wywołuje zwłaszcza to, że nie mieści się ona w granicach określonych w art. 197 Konstytucji RP. Wbrew pozorom wykracza bowiem poza sprawy organizacyjne i proceduralne. Przepisy narzucające zasadę orzekania w 13-osobowym składzie, w kolejności wyznaczanej datami wpływu spraw oraz brak vacatio legis uniemożliwiają w praktyce normalną działalność orzeczniczą Trybunału Konstytucyjnego. W szczególności blokują możliwość zbadania w rozsądnym terminie konstytucyjności ustawy z 22 grudnia 2015 r., co z kolei rodzi niebezpieczeństwo powstania absurdalnych sytuacji prawnych. Może to oznaczać ingerencję w kompetencje orzecznicze Trybunału Konstytucyjnego zagwarantowane w art. 188 Konstytucji RP. Do niego też powinno należeć ostateczne rozstrzygnięcie wszystkich dylematów związanych z wymienioną wyżej ustawą.The Amendment to the Act on the Constitutional Tribunal passed on 22 December 2015 has raised serious doubts in Polish and foreign academic and political institutions and the media. Of particular concern is the fact that the amendment does not correspond to the limitations of Article 197 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. Contrary to appearances the amendment exceeds organisational and procedural questions. The amendment imposing a rule that 13 judges must rule on cases in the  chronological order of their submission and the lack of vacatio legis makes it impossible for the Constitutional Tribunal to continue in practice its normal judicial function. In particular it makes it impossible for the Constitutional Tribunal to decide on the constitutional legality of the Amendment of 22 December 2015 within a reasonable time scale which in itself could result in dangerous and absurd legal situations. This could be tantamount to an interference in the judicial competences of the Constitutional Tribunal guaranteed by Article 188 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. It is the Constitutional Tribunal itself that should rule on all dilemmas concerning this amendment

Electromagnetic analysis of arbitrarily shaped pinched carpets

We derive the expressions for the anisotropic heterogeneous tensors of permittivity and perme- ability associated with two-dimensional and three-dimensional carpets of an arbitrary shape. In the former case, we map a segment onto smooth curves whereas in the latter case we map a non convex region of the plane onto smooth surfaces. Importantly, these carpets display no singularity of the permeability and permeability tensor components, and this may lead to some broadband cloaking.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, Current Status of Manuscript: 19Apr10 26May10-Sent on appeal;report rcvd 29Dec09 13Apr10-Ed. decision and/or ref. comments to author;response rcvd 04Dec09 21Dec09-Ed. decision and/or ref. comments to author;response rcvd 01Dec09-Transferred from PRL to PRA 18Aug09 30Nov09-Ed.decision and/or ref. comments to author;response rcvd 14Aug09 - Correspondence sent to autho

A New Current Regularization of Thirring Model

We study an ambiguity of the current regularization in the Thirring model. We find a new current definition which enables to make a comprehensive treatment of the current. Our formulation is simpler than Klaiber's formulation. We compare our result with other formulations and find a very good agreement with their result. We also obtain the Schwinger term and the general formula for any current regularization.Comment: 7 pages, some comments and references added, to appear in Prog. Theor. Phy

Some implications for Alaska of petroleum development on the Norwegian Continental Shelf

In January 1978, Senator Mike Gravel travelled in Norway to obtain information on Norwegian reactions to petroleum development on the continental shelf of the North and Norwegian Seas. This report presents some implications of Norwegian experiences which may be relevant to Alaska as developed by two University of Alaska professors who accompanied Senator Gravel and his assistant C. Deming Cowles.Introduction -- Background -- Current status -- North Norwegian oil development -- Petro-chemical industries (Bamble) -- Comments on the impact of petroleum development on Stavanger -- Continental shelf surveillance, the Bravo Blow-Out and pollution control -- Some concluding comments -- References -- Bibliography

European cohesion policy after 2006:some comments about current proposals

EU regional policy is in a challenging and dynamic period of change. Not only are there significant administrative problems to overcome in both the current and the new Member States, but there is also a major ongoing debate about the reform of EU regional policy after 2006. Post 2006, the principal challenge concerns economic and social cohesion in an enlarged Union. Enlargement will lead to a severely unbalanced EU territory in terms of the widening disparities between Member States and regions. The degree to which EU regional policy can meet these challenges will be determined by budgetary constraints. The period of successive increases in EU regional policy ended at the Berlin Council in March 1999. Aspects of the current debate concern not only the EU regional policy budget for 2007-2013 but also the possible allocations. In this context, the paper has two main objectives: a) To identify regional disparities in the forthcoming enlarged Europe using multivariate statistical analysis techniques. b) To assess different proposals arising from the Commission open debate on future Cohesion Policy. The data used in the analysis is Newcronos-REGIO database elaborated by EUROSTAT. As a result, a classification of all regions (NUTsII) in the EU-25 is obtained through factor and cluster analysis techniques. Results obtained show that regional disparities cannot be exclusively explained by GDP per capita. Other factors linked to the behaviour of the labour market and to the demographic characteristics of the territories are also of a great importance Key words: Economic and Social Cohesion, Regional Policy, Cluster Analysis