Please Recognize Me: The United Kingdom Should Enact the UNCITRAL Model Lawon Recognition and Enforcement of Insolvency-Related Judgments

Since 1995, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), has been developing tools to meet the challenges of having different insolvency laws managing a single cross-border insolvency. By 1997, UNCITRAL’s Working Group V completed the Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency. By September 2020, the original model law has been adopted by 48 countries. In Rubin v. Eurofinance SA, the U.K. Supreme Court cited a lack of authority to recognize a U.S. insolvency-related judgment in the Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency. As a result of this decision, UNCITRAL’s Working Group V developed the Model Law on Recognition and Enforcement of Insolvency-Related Judgments. This Note intends to address this following question: does this second model law provide a statutory basis to reverse the case law established by Rubin in the U.K.? This Note will demonstrate through an analysis of this new model law that a full implementation could potentially, but not definitely, provide such a basis. There is a small risk that a judge rejecting modified-universalism will not apply the new model law as designed to fix Rubin. Further, this Note will provide suggestions on where the new model law needs further direction or clarification in order to more assuredly bring the U.K. and other relevant jurisdictions back in line with a modified-universalist approach that UNCITRAL is targeting

Spatially clustered resources increase male aggregation and mating duration in Drosophila melanogaster

In environments where females mate multiply, males should adjust their behaviour and physiology in response to the perceived level of sperm competition to maximize their fitness. Evidence of such plasticity has been found in several laboratory and field studies, but little is known about the cues stimulating these responses in natural populations. One way in which males appear to assess sperm competition risk is through encounter rates with conspecific males. Such encounter rates may be driven by the spatial distribution of resources required by males (i.e. food patches or potential mates), which in turn affects local density. However, explicit links between resource distribution, male encounter rates and shifts in behaviour related to sperm competition have not been demonstrated. We found that when group size of Drosophila melanogaster males was held constant, a small decrease in the distance between patches of food resources had striking effects on male behaviour. Compared to those from dispersed resources, males on clustered resources had a significantly reduced intermale distance (and hence encounter rate) and subsequently a longer noncompetitive copulation duration, previously shown to be a reliable indicator of male perception of sperm competition risk. The aggregation of resources, operating via increased encounter rate, can stimulate shifts in behaviour affecting male sperm competition performance. Given that the spatial distribution of resources is typically variable in natural populations (and often unpredictable), selection is likely to favour the evolution of plasticity in sexual behaviour where resource aggregation increases the probability of sperm competition

Social and physical environment independently affect oviposition decisions in Drosophila

In response to environmental stimuli, including variation in the presence of conspecifics, genotypes show highly plastic responses in behavioral and physiological traits influencing reproduction. Although extensively documented in males, such female responses are rather less studied. We expect females to be highly responsive to environmental variation and to differentially allocate resources to increase offspring fitness, given the major contribution of mothers to offspring number, size, and developmental conditions. Using Drosophila melanogaster, we (a) manipulate exposure to conspecific females, which mothers could use to anticipate the number of potential mates and larval density, and; (b) test how this interacts with the spatial distribution of potential oviposition sites, with females from higher densities expected to prefer clustered resources that can support a larger number of larvae. We found that high density females were slower to start copulating and reduced their copulation duration, the opposite effect to that observed in males. There was a parallel, perhaps related, effect on egg production: females previously housed in groups laid fewer eggs than those housed in solitude. Resource patchiness also influenced oviposition behavior: females preferred aggregated substrate, which attracted more females to lay eggs. However, we found no interaction between prior housing conditions and resource patchiness, indicating that females did not perceive the value of different resource distributions differently when exposed to environments that could signal expected levels of larval competition. We show that, although exposure to consexual competition changes copulatory behaviors of females, the distribution of oviposition resources has a greater effect on oviposition decisions

Valley-spin blockade and spin resonance in carbon nanotubes

Manipulation and readout of spin qubits in quantum dots made in III-V materials successfully rely on Pauli blockade that forbids transitions between spin-triplet and spin-singlet states. Quantum dots in group IV materials have the advantage of avoiding decoherence from the hyperfine interaction by purifying them with only zero-spin nuclei. Complications of group IV materials arise from the valley degeneracies in the electronic bandstructure. These lead to complicated multiplet states even for two-electron quantum dots thereby significantly weakening the selection rules for Pauli blockade. Only recently have spin qubits been realized in silicon devices where the valley degeneracy is lifted by strain and spatial confinement. In carbon nanotubes Pauli blockade can be observed by lifting valley degeneracy through disorder. In clean nanotubes, quantum dots have to be made ultra-small to obtain a large energy difference between the relevant multiplet states. Here we report on low-disorder nanotubes and demonstrate Pauli blockade based on both valley and spin selection rules. We exploit the bandgap of the nanotube to obtain a large level spacing and thereby a robust blockade. Single-electron spin resonance is detected using the blockade.Comment: 31 pages including supplementary informatio

Quasi-coherent fluctuations limiting the pedestal growth on Alcator C-Mod: experiment and modelling

Performance predictions for future fusion devices rely on an accurate model of the pedestal structure. The candidate for predictive pedestal structure is EPED, and it is imperative to test the underlying hypotheses to further gain confidence for ITER projections. Here, we present experimental work testing one of the EPED hypotheses, namely the existence of a soft limit set by microinstabilities such as the kinetic ballooning mode. This work extends recent work on Alactor C-Mod (Diallo et al 2014 Phys. Rev. Lett. 112 115001), to include detailed measurements of the edge fluctuations and comparisons of edge simulation codes and experimental observations

Poloidal asymmetries in edge transport barriers

Measurements of impurities in Alcator C-Mod indicate that in the pedestal region, significant poloidal asymmetries can exist in the impurity density, ion temperature, and main ion density. In light of the observation that ion temperature and electrostatic potential are not constant on a flux surface [Theiler et al., Nucl. Fusion 54, 083017 (2014)], a technique based on total pressure conservation to align profiles measured at separate poloidal locations is presented and applied. Gyrokinetic neoclassical simulations with XGCa support the observed large poloidal variations in ion temperature and density, and that the total pressure is approximately constant on a flux surface. With the updated alignment technique, the observed in-out asymmetry in impurity density is reduced from previous publishing [Churchill et al., Nucl. Fusion 53, 122002 (2013)], but remains substantial (nz,H/nz,L∼6). Candidate asymmetry drivers are explored, showing that neither non-uniform impurity sources nor localized fluctuation-driven transport are able to explain satisfactorily the impurity density asymmetry. Since impurity density asymmetries are only present in plasmas with strong electron density gradients, and radial transport timescales become comparable to parallel transport timescales in the pedestal region, it is suggested that global transport effects relating to the strong electron density gradients in the pedestal are the main driver for the pedestal in-out impurity density asymmetry.United States. Department of Energy (DE-FC02-99ER54512)United States. Department of Energy (DE-FG02-06ER54845)United States. Department of Energy (DE-FG02-86ER53223)United States. Department of Energy (DE-AC02-09CH11466

Double quantum dot with integrated charge sensor based on Ge/Si heterostructure nanowires

Coupled electron spins in semiconductor double quantum dots hold promise as the basis for solid-state qubits. To date, most experiments have used III-V materials, in which coherence is limited by hyperfine interactions. Ge/Si heterostructure nanowires seem ideally suited to overcome this limitation: the predominance of spin-zero nuclei suppresses the hyperfine interaction and chemical synthesis creates a clean and defect-free system with highly controllable properties. Here we present a top gate-defined double quantum dot based on Ge/Si heterostructure nanowires with fully tunable coupling between the dots and to the leads. We also demonstrate a novel approach to charge sensing in a one-dimensional nanostructure by capacitively coupling the double dot to a single dot on an adjacent nanowire. The double quantum dot and integrated charge sensor serve as an essential building block required to form a solid-state spin qubit free of nuclear spin.Comment: Related work at http://marcuslab.harvard.edu and http://cmliris.harvard.ed

Inboard and outboard radial electric field wells in the H- and I-mode pedestal of Alcator C-Mod and poloidal variations of impurity temperature

We present inboard (HFS) and outboard (LFS) radial electric field (E[subscript r]) and impurity temperature (T[subscript z]) measurements in the I-mode and H-mode pedestal of Alcator C-Mod. These measurements reveal strong Er wells at the HFS and the LFS midplane in both regimes and clear pedestals in T[subscript z], which are of similar shape and height for the HFS and LFS. While the H-mode E[subscript r] well has a radially symmetric structure, the E[subscript r] well in I-mode is asymmetric, with a stronger ExB shear layer at the outer edge of the E[subscript r] well, near the separatrix. Comparison of HFS and LFS profiles indicates that impurity temperature and plasma potential are not simultaneously flux functions. Uncertainties in radial alignment after mapping HFS measurements along flux surfaces to the LFS do not, however, allow direct determination as to which quantity varies poloidally and to what extent. Radially aligning HFS and LFS measurements based on the T[subscript z] profiles would result in substantial inboard-outboard variations of plasma potential and electron density. Aligning HFS and LFS E[subscript r] wells instead also approximately aligns the impurity poloidal flow profiles, while resulting in a LFS impurity temperature exceeding the HFS values in the region of steepest gradients by up to 70%. Considerations based on a simplified form of total parallel momentum balance and estimates of parallel and perpendicular heat transport time scales seem to favor an approximate alignment of the E[subscript r] wells and a substantial poloidal asymmetry in impurity temperature.United States. Dept. of Energy (Cooperative Agreement DE-FC02-99ER54512)Swiss National Science Foundatio

Vulnerability-based spatial sampling stratification for the National Children\u27s Study, Worcester County, Massachusetts: capturing health-relevant environmental and sociodemographic variability

BACKGROUND: The National Children\u27s Study is the most ambitious study ever attempted in the United States to assess how environmental factors impact child health and development. It aims to follow 100,000 children from gestation until 21 years of age. Success requires breaking new interdisciplinary ground, starting with how to select the sample of \u3e 1,000 children in each of 105 study sites; no standardized protocol exists for stratification of the target population by factoring in the diverse environments it inhabits. Worcester County, Massachusetts, like other sites, stratifies according to local conditions and local knowledge, subject to probability sampling rules. OBJECTIVES: We answer the following questions: How do we divide Worcester County into viable strata that represent its health-relevant environmental and sociodemographic heterogeneity, subject to sampling rules? What potential does our approach have to inform stratification at other sites? RESULTS: We developed a multivariable, vulnerability-based method for spatial sampling consisting of two descriptive indices: a hazards/stressors exposure index (comprising three proxy variables), and an adaptive capacity/sociodemographic character index (five variables). Multivariable, health-relevant stratification at the start of the study may improve detection power for environment-child health associations down the line. Eighteen strata capture countywide heterogeneity in the indices and have optimal relative homogeneity within each. They achieve comparable expected birth counts and conform to local concepts of space. CONCLUSION: The approach offers moderate to high potential to inform other sites, limited by intersite differences in data availability, geodemographics, and technical capacity. Energetic community engagement from the start promotes local stratification coherence, plus vital researcher-community trust and co-ownership for sustainability