Transovereignty: Separating Human Rights from Traditional Sovereignty and the Implications for the Ethics of International Law Practice

Part I of this Article develops some necessary perspective on transovereignty and its importance to law and ethics by reflecting first on traditional sovereignty. A few competing positivist and anti-positivist theories of the emergence of political and legal systems will be briefly reviewed to reveal significantly different pictures of the possible role played by rights-claims in political development. Part II extends one of those theoretical models to help us describe more fully the nature and importance of the special political phenomenon of transovereignty. Part III examines briefly a particularly strong example of transovereignty at work: the impact of the Catholic Church on local political activities in Poland. Widening the Article\u27s perspective, Part IV speculates briefly on the implications of transovereignty for the legal ethics of lawyers practicing human rights law. The Article addresses the question, for example, of whether lawyers as a professional group, with their shared reverence for the rule of law as a governing political ideal - an ideal of orderliness that they view as a “human right” all its own - are themselves becoming a significant transovereign force

On the number of Mather measures of Lagrangian systems

In 1996, Ricardo Ricardo Ma\~n\'e discovered that Mather measures are in fact the minimizers of a "universal" infinite dimensional linear programming problem. This fundamental result has many applications, one of the most important is to the estimates of the generic number of Mather measures. Ma\~n\'e obtained the first estimation of that sort by using finite dimensional approximations. Recently, we were able with Gonzalo Contreras to use this method of finite dimensional approximation in order to solve a conjecture of John Mather concerning the generic number of Mather measures for families of Lagrangian systems. In the present paper we obtain finer results in that direction by applying directly some classical tools of convex analysis to the infinite dimensional problem. We use a notion of countably rectifiable sets of finite codimension in Banach (and Frechet) spaces which may deserve independent interest

A new kind of Lax-Oleinik type operator with parameters for time-periodic positive definite Lagrangian systems

In this paper we introduce a new kind of Lax-Oleinik type operator with parameters associated with positive definite Lagrangian systems for both the time-periodic case and the time-independent case. On one hand, the new family of Lax-Oleinik type operators with an arbitrary $u\in C(M,\mathbb{R}^1)$ as initial condition converges to a backward weak KAM solution in the time-periodic case, while it was shown by Fathi and Mather that there is no such convergence of the Lax-Oleinik semigroup. On the other hand, the new family of Lax-Oleinik type operators with an arbitrary $u\in C(M,\mathbb{R}^1)$ as initial condition converges to a backward weak KAM solution faster than the Lax-Oleinik semigroup in the time-independent case.Comment: We give a new definition of Lax-Oleinik type operator; add some reference

The origin of the LMC stellar bar: clues from the SFH of the bar and inner disk

We discuss the origin of the LMC stellar bar by comparing the star formation histories (SFH) obtained from deep color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) in the bar and in a number of fields in different directions within the inner disk. The CMDs, reaching the oldest main sequence turnoffs in these very crowded fields, have been obtained with VIMOS on the VLT in service mode, under very good seeing conditions. We show that the SFHs of all fields share the same patterns, with consistent variations of the star formation rate as a function of time in all of them. We therefore conclude that no specific event of star formation can be identified with the formation of the LMC bar, which instead likely formed from a redistribution of disk material that occurred when the LMC disk became bar unstable, and shared a common SFH with the inner disk thereafter. The strong similarity between the SFH of the center and edge of the bar rules out significant spatial variations of the SFH across the bar, which are predicted by scenarios of classic bar formation through buckling mechanisms.Comment: MNRAS Letters, accepte

Quadratic cavity soliton optical frequency combs

We theoretically investigate the formation of frequency combs in a dispersive second-harmonic generation cavity system, and predict the existence of quadratic cavity solitons in the absence of a temporal walk-off

The QCD spectrum with three quark flavors

We present results from a lattice hadron spectrum calculation using three flavors of dynamical quarks - two light and one strange, and quenched simulations for comparison. These simulations were done using a one-loop Symanzik improved gauge action and an improved Kogut-Susskind quark action. The lattice spacings, and hence also the physical volumes, were tuned to be the same in all the runs to better expose differences due to flavor number. Lattice spacings were tuned using the static quark potential, so as a byproduct we obtain updated results for the effect of sea quarks on the static quark potential. We find indications that the full QCD meson spectrum is in better agreement with experiment than the quenched spectrum. For the 0++ (a0) meson we see a coupling to two pseudoscalar mesons, or a meson decay on the lattice.Comment: 38 pages, 20 figures, uses epsf. 5/29/01 revision responds to referee's Comments, changes pion fits and tables, and corrects Fig. 10 and some minor error

IRIS: A new generation of IRAS maps

The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) had a tremendous impact on many areas of modern astrophysics. In particular it revealed the ubiquity of infrared cirrus that are a spectacular manifestation of the interstellar medium complexity but also an important foreground for observational cosmology. With the forthcoming Planck satellite there is a need for all-sky complementary data sets with arcminute resolution that can bring informations on specific foreground emissions that contaminate the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. With its 4 arcmin resolution matching perfectly the high-frequency bands of Planck, IRAS is a natural data set to study the variations of dust properties at all scales. But the latest version of the images delivered by the IRAS team (the ISSA plates) suffer from calibration, zero level and striping problems that can preclude its use, especially at 12 and 25 micron. In this paper we present how we proceeded to solve each of these problems and enhance significantly the general quality of the ISSA plates in the four bands (12, 25, 60 and 100 micron). This new generation of IRAS images, called IRIS, benefits from a better zodiacal light subtraction, from a calibration and zero level compatible with DIRBE, and from a better destriping. At 100 micron the IRIS product is also a significant improvement from the Schlegel et al. (1998) maps. IRIS keeps the full ISSA resolution, it includes well calibrated point sources and the diffuse emission calibration at scales smaller than 1 degree was corrected for the variation of the IRAS detector responsivity with scale and brightness. The uncertainty on the IRIS calibration and zero level are dominated by the uncertainty on the DIRBE calibration and on the accuracy of the zodiacal light model.Comment: 16 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ (Suppl). Higher resolution version available at http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~mamd/IRIS/IrisTechnical.htm

Approximate Nonlinear Regulation via Identification-Based Adaptive Internal Models

This article concerns the problem of adaptive output regulation for multivariable nonlinear systems in normal form. We present a regulator employing an adaptive internal model of the exogenous signals based on the theory of nonlinear Luenberger observers. Adaptation is performed by means of discrete-time system identification schemes, in which every algorithm fulfilling some optimality and stability conditions can be used. Practical and approximate regulation results are given relating the prediction capabilities of the identified model to the asymptotic bound on the regulated variables, which become asymptotic whenever a “right” internal model exists in the identifier's model set. The proposed approach, moreover, does not require “high-gain” stabilization actions

An experimental and modeling study of pH and related solutes in an irrigated anoxic coastal sediment

Macrofaunal irrigation is an important process in nearshore sediments, facilitating greater exchange between sediments and seawater and imparting significant lateral heterogeneity to the porewater profiles of many constituents. Like many macrofaunal activities, irrigation is a transient behavior, i.e. tubes and burrows are flushed periodically, at frequencies that generally are species-specific. As a result, transient concentrations within the dwelling arise, potentially impacting gradients, fluxes and reaction rates in the vicinity of the dwelling. We investigated the impact of periodic burrow irrigation on the distribution of several diagenetically important porewater constituents. Laboratory experiments evaluated irrigation periodicity using artificially irrigated tubes embedded in nearshore organic-rich sediments, and microdistributions of oxygen and pH in laboratory experiments were measured with microelectrodes. To help interpret our results, we also constructed a simplified time and space-dependent transport-reaction model for oxygen, pH and sulfide in irrigated sediments. Laboratory results show substantial differences in the pH field of sediments surrounding an irrigated tube as a function of irrigation frequency. Higher pH values, indicative of an overlying water signature, were observed in the vicinity of the tube wall with increasing duration of irrigation. Conversely, oxygen concentrations did not vary significantly with the amount of irrigation, most likely a result of extremely high sediment oxygen demand. Model results are consistent with laboratory findings in predicting differences in the measured variables as a function of irrigation frequency. However, the nature and extent of the model-predicted differences are often at variance with the experimental data. Overall, experimental and modeling results both suggest irrigation periodicity can substantially influence porewater distributions and diagenetic processes in sediments. Future studies should examine the influence of irrigation periodicity on the types and rates of reactions, and the attendant biological features, in the environment encompassing the tube or burrow wall