Developing a Global Soil Regime

From the 1960s onwards, the global community became more aware of the phenomena of air and water pollution. More recently, the issues of climate change, loss of biodiversity, desertification, drought, and land degradation have become more prominent. While biodiversity loss and climate change have garnered close attention, issues of land degradation and sustainability of soils has attracted less focus in international fora and by national governments. We argue here that soil, as a vital biological and cultural resource, demands attention on the same level as biological diversity and climate change, and that this should be reflected in both international law and in legislation at national level. This article explores the elements that could form the basis of a global instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of soil, and sets out the premise for the community of nations to support the negotiation and drafting of such an instrument. It does so in light of the recent discussion on the introduction of a provision in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals on the achievement of zero net land degradation, the revision of the World Soil Charter as well as the work of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. It also briefly explores other complementary mechanisms that can be used for promoting the sustainable use of soils

Environmental and Resource Law in Australia

This article outlines the development of environmental and resource law in Australia and explores its constitutional and political setting. The need for a national approach to the environment within the context of Australia as a federally organized country is recognized, particularly with regard to Australia\u27s international obligations and the fact that environmental issues span state, territory, and/or national boundaries. It is argued that, to date, federal action with respect to the environment does not satisfactorily demonstrate the emergence of a national environmental strategy. However, the recent Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment, signed by the state and federal governments in 1992, and the development of ecologically sustainable strategies for Australia are acknowledged for their potential to overcome the federal-state conflicts, which have inhibited an adequate national approach

The Rise of Environmental Law in the Asian Region

In the past three decades, the realm of environmental law in many Western countries, and internationally, has grown from a small baby crying for attention to a full-fledged, articulate adult, participating in a wide variety of international, regional, and national fora concerning the protection of the environment and the management of our natural resources. More recently, in many non-Western countries and especially in Asia, environmental law has begun to enter into adulthood, manifested by significant legislative initiatives, judicial activism and a resulting environmental jurisprudence, and the establishment and growth of environmental and resource management agencies

Precursors and BRST Symmetry

In the AdS/CFT correspondence, bulk information appears to be encoded in the CFT in a redundant way. A local bulk field corresponds to many different non-local CFT operators (precursors). We recast this ambiguity in the language of BRST symmetry, and propose that in the large $N$ limit, the difference between two precursors is a BRST exact and ghost-free term. Using the BRST formalism and working in a simple model with global symmetries, we re-derive a precursor ambiguity appearing in earlier work. Finally, we show within this model that this BRST ambiguity has the right number of parameters to explain the freedom to localize precursors within the boundary of an entanglement wedge order by order in the large $N$ expansion.Comment: 12 page

A flexible rotor on flexible supports: modeling & experiments

In this study, a flexible rotor with variable support stiffness has been analyzed. Simple support models consisting of mass, spring systems are extracted from modal analysis of the isolated support and by applying static loads to the finite element model of the supports. The derived equivalent models of the supports are then implemented in the finite element based structural model which predicts the dynamic behavior of the rotor. Finally experimental modal analysis of the rotor is performed with different support stiffnesses. The experimental and theoretical results have been compared and different support modeling approaches have been examined

Universality of Sparse d>2d>2 Conformal Field Theory at Large NN

We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for large $N$ conformal field theories to have a universal free energy and an extended range of validity of the higher-dimensional Cardy formula. These constraints are much tighter than in two dimensions and must be satisfied by any conformal field theory dual to Einstein gravity. We construct and analyze symmetric product orbifold theories on $\mathbb{T}^d$ and show that they only realize the necessary phase structure and extended range of validity if the seed theory is assumed to have a universal vacuum energy.Comment: 32 pages + appendice

Thermal modeling of a mini rotor-stator system

In this study the temperature increase and heat dissipation in the air gap of a cylindrical mini rotor stator system has been analyzed. A simple thermal model based on lumped parameter thermal networks has been developed. With this model the temperature dependent air properties for the fluid-rotor interaction models have been calculated. Next the complete system has also been modeled by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with Ansys-CFX and Ansys. The results have been compared and the capability of the thermal networks method to calculate the temperature of the air between the rotor and stator of a high speed micro rotor has been discussed