EU External Relations: Exclusive Competence Revisited

This Article will focus on the question of exclusive competence in the field of EU external relations, especially in the light of recent developments. After a brief discussion on the origins and development of exclusive competence, a distinction will be made between common commercial policy, which has traditionally been the most important area of an explicit “a priori” exclusive competence, and what is often called an implicit exclusive competence, which, as it is today based on some general criteria enshrined in TFEU Article 3(2), may be called “supervening” exclusive competence. With regard to both categories, the main focus will be on recent developments, notably the impact of the Treaty of Lisbon, which introduced the TFEU and its Articles 2 and 3, as well as the case law of the European Court of Justice (“ECJ” or the “Court”) following the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, on December 1, 2009

The rise of thermophilic sea urchins and the expansion of barren grounds in the Mediterranean Sea

Recent ecological studies have shown a strong relation between temperature, echinoids and their grazing effects on macro-algal communities. In this study, we speculate that climate warming may result in an increasingly favourable environment for the reproduction and development of the sea urchin Arbacia lixula. The relationship between increased A. lixula density and the extent of barren grounds in the Mediterranean Sea is also discussed

Interactive effects of fishing effort reduction and climate change in a central Mediterranean fishing area: Insights from bio-economic indices derived from a dynamic food-web model

Disentangling the effects of mixed fisheries and climate change across entire food-webs requires a description of ecosystems using tools that can quantify interactive effects as well as bio-economic aspects. A calibrated dynamic model for the Sicily Channel food web, made up of 72 functional groups and including 13 fleet segments, was developed. A temporal simulation until 2050 was conducted to evaluate the bio-economic interactive effects of the reduction of bottom trawling fishing effort by exploring different scenarios that combine fishery and climate change. Our results indicate that direct and indirect effects produce a net increase in biomass of many functional groups with immediate decline of trawlers’ catches and economic incomes, followed by a long term increase mainly due to biomass rebuilding of commercial species which lasts 5-10 years after fishing reduction. Synergistic and antagonistic effects caused by changes in the fishing effort and in climate characterize a specific functional group’s response in biomass which, in turn, modulate also the catch and income of the other fleets, and especially of those sharing target resources. However, trawler’s intra-fleet competition is higher than the others fleet effects. In the medium term, the effects of fishing effort reduction are higher than those of climate change and seem to make exploitation of marine resources more sustainable over time and fishery processes more efficient by improving ecosystem health

Quantum state preparation, tomography, and entanglement of mechanical oscillators

Precisely engineered mechanical oscillators keep time, filter signals, and sense motion, making them an indispensable part of today's technological landscape. These unique capabilities motivate bringing mechanical devices into the quantum domain by interfacing them with engineered quantum circuits. Proposals to combine microwave-frequency mechanical resonators with superconducting devices suggest the possibility of powerful quantum acoustic processors. Meanwhile, experiments in several mechanical systems have demonstrated quantum state control and readout, phonon number resolution, and phonon-mediated qubit-qubit interactions. Currently, these acoustic platforms lack processors capable of controlling multiple mechanical oscillators' quantum states with a single qubit, and the rapid quantum non-demolition measurements of mechanical states needed for error correction. Here we use a superconducting qubit to control and read out the quantum state of a pair of nanomechanical resonators. Our device is capable of fast qubit-mechanics swap operations, which we use to deterministically manipulate the mechanical states. By placing the qubit into the strong dispersive regime with both mechanical resonators simultaneously, we determine the resonators' phonon number distributions via Ramsey measurements. Finally, we present quantum tomography of the prepared nonclassical and entangled mechanical states. Our result represents a concrete step toward feedback-based operation of a quantum acoustic processor.Comment: 13 pages, 4+5 figure

Detection of the Cherenkov light diffused by Sea Water with the ULTRA Experiment

The study of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays represents one of the most challenging topic in the Cosmic Rays and in the Astroparticle Physics fields. The interaction of primary particles with atmospheric nuclei produces a huge Extensive Air Shower together with isotropic emission of UV fluorescence light and highly directional Cherenkov photons, that are reflected/diffused isotropically by the impact on the Earth's surface or on high optical depth clouds. For space-based observations, detecting the reflected Cherenkov signal in a delayed coincidence with the fluorescence light improves the accuracy of the shower reconstruction in space and in particular the measurement of the shower maximum, giving a strong signature for discriminating hadrons and neutrinos, and helping to estimate the primary chemical composition. Since the Earth's surface is mostly covered by water, the ULTRA (UV Light Transmission and Reflection in the Atmosphere)experiment has been designed to provide the diffusing properties of sea water, overcoming the lack of information in this specific field. A small EAS array, made up of 5 particle detectors, and an UV optical device, have been coupled to detect in coincidence both electromagnetic and UV components. The detector was in operation from May to December, 2005, in a small private harbor in Capo Granitola (Italy); the results of these measurements in terms of diffusion coefficient and threshold energy are presented here.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, PDF format, Proceedings of 30th ICRC, International Cosmic Ray Conference 2007, Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, 3-11 July 200