5,642 research outputs found
Spacetime Defects: von K\'arm\'an vortex street like configurations
A special arrangement of spinning strings with dislocations similar to a von
K\'arm\'an vortex street is studied. We numerically solve the geodesic
equations for the special case of a test particle moving along twoinfinite rows
of pure dislocations and also discuss the case of pure spinning defects.Comment: 9 pages, 2figures, CQG in pres
A Study of Activated Processes in Soft Sphere Glass
On the basis of long simulations of a binary mixture of soft spheres just
below the glass transition, we make an exploratory study of the activated
processes that contribute to the dynamics. We concentrate on statistical
measures of the size of the activated processes.Comment: 17 pages, 9 postscript figures with epsf, uses harvmac.te
The ambivalent shadow of the pre-Wilsonian rise of international law
The generation of American international lawyers who founded the American Society of International Law in 1906 and nurtured the soil for what has been retrospectively called a âmoralistic legalistic approach to international relationsâ remains little studied. A survey of the rise of international legal literature in the U.S. from the mid-19th century to the eve of the Great War serves as a backdrop to the examination of the boosting effect on international law of the Spanish American War in 1898. An examination of the Insular Cases before the US Supreme Court is then accompanied by the analysis of a number of influential factors behind the pre-war rise of international law in the U.S. The work concludes with an examination of the rise of natural law doctrines in international law during the interwar period and the critiques addressed.by the realist founders of the field of âinternational relationsâ to the âmoralistic legalistic approach to international relation
Soil nitrogen affects phosphorus recycling: foliar resorption and plantâsoil feedbacks in a northern hardwood forest
Previous studies have attempted to link foliar resorption of nitrogen and phosphorus to their respective availabilities in soil, with mixed results. Based on resource optimization theory, we hypothesized that the foliar resorption of one element could be driven by the availability of another element. We tested various measures of soil N and P as predictors of N and P resorption in six tree species in 18 plots across six stands at the Bartlett Experimental Forest, New Hampshire, USA. Phosphorus resorption efficiency (P , 0.01) and proficiency (P Œ 0.01) increased with soil N content to 30 cm depth, suggesting that trees conserve P based on the availability of soil N. Phosphorus resorption also increased with soil P content, which is difficult to explain based on single-element limitation, but follows from the correlation between soil N and soil P. The expected single-element relationships were evident only in the O horizon: P resorption was high where resin-available P was low in the Oe (P , 0.01 for efficiency, P , 0.001 for proficiency) and N resorption was high where potential N mineralization in the Oa was low (P , 0.01 for efficiency and 0.11 for proficiency). Since leaf litter is a principal source of N and P to the O horizon, low nutrient availability there could be a result rather than a cause of high resorption. The striking effect of soil N content on foliar P resorption is the first evidence of multiple-element control on nutrient resorption to be reported from an unmanipulated ecosystem
Gravitating defects of codimension-two
Thin gravitating defects with conical singularities in higher codimensions
and with generalized Israel matching conditions are known to be inconsistent
for generic energy-momentum. A way to remove this inconsistency is proposed and
is realized for an axially symmetric gravitating codimension-two defect in six
dimensional Einstein gravity. By varying with respect to the brane embedding
fields, alternative matching conditions are derived, which are generalizations
of the Nambu-Goto equations of motion of the defect, consistent with bulk
gravity. For a maximally symmetric defect the standard picture is recovered.
The four-dimensional perfect fluid cosmology coincides with conventional FRW in
the case of radiation, but for dust it has rho^{4/3} instead of rho. A
four-dimensional black hole solution is presented having the Schwarzschild form
with a short-distance correction r^{-2}.Comment: Minor changes, to appear in Classical and Quantum Gravit
Cognition-Enhancing Drugs: Can We Say No?
Normative analysis of cognition-enhancing drugs frequently weighs the liberty interests of drug users against egalitarian commitments to a level playing field. Yet those who would refuse to engage in neuroenhancement may well find their liberty to do so limited in a society where such drugs are widespread. To the extent that unvarnished emotional responses are world-disclosive, neurocosmetic practices also threaten to provide a form of faulty data to their users. This essay examines underappreciated liberty-based and epistemic rationales for regulating cognition-enhancing drugs
The Chagos Islands cases: the empire strikes back
Good governance requires the accommodation of multiple interests in the cause of decision making. However, undue regard for particular sectional interests can take their toll upon public faith in government administration. Historically, broad conceptions of the good of the commonwealth were employed to outweigh the interests of groups that resisted colonisation. In the decision making of the British Empire, the standard approach for justifying the marginalisation of the interests of colonised groups was that they were uncivilised and that particular hardships were the price to be paid for bringing to them the imperial dividend of industrial society. It is widely assumed that with the dismantling of the British Empire, such impulses and their accompanying jurisprudence became a thing of the past. Even as decolonisation proceeded apace after the Second World War, however, the United Kingdom maintained control of strategically important islands with a view towards sustaining its global role. In an infamous example from this twilight period of empire, in the 1960s imperial interests were used to justify the expulsion of the Chagos islanders from the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). Into the twenty-first century, this forced elision of the UKâs interests with the imperial âcommon goodâ continues to take centre stage in courtroom battles over the islandersâ rights, being cited before domestic and international tribunals in order to maintain the Chagossiansâ exclusion from their homeland. This article considers the new jurisprudence of imperialism which has emerged in a string of decisions which have continued to marginalise the Chagossiansâ interests
Understanding of the Renormalization Program in a mathematically Rigorous Framework and an Intrinsic Mass Scale
we show there exists a mathematically consistent framework in which the
Renormalization Program can be understood in a natural manner. The framework
does not require any violations of mathematical rigor usually associated with
the Renormalization program. We use the framework of the non-local field
theories [these carry a finite mass scale (\Lambda)]and set up a finite
perturbative program. We show how this program leads to the perturbation series
of the usual renormalization program [except one difference] if the series is
restructured .We further show that the comparison becomes possible if there
exists a finite mass scale (\Lambda), with certain properties, in the Quantum
Field theory [which we take to be the scale present in the nonlocal theory]. We
give a way to estimate the scale (\Lambda). We also show that the finite
perturbation program differs from the usual renormalization program by a term;
which we propose can also be used to put a bound on (\Lambda).Comment: 19 pages, a missing equation added,a reference added and a few typos
correcte
The stability of the O(N) invariant fixed point in three dimensions
We study the stability of the O(N) fixed point in three dimensions under
perturbations of the cubic type. We address this problem in the three cases
by using finite size scaling techniques and high precision Monte
Carlo simulations. It is well know that there is a critical value
below which the O(N) fixed point is stable and above which the cubic fixed
point becomes the stable one. While we cannot exclude that , as recently
claimed by Kleinert and collaborators, our analysis strongly suggests that
coincides with 3.Comment: latex file of 18 pages plus three ps figure
Phase separation in systems with absorbing states
We study the problem of phase separation in systems with a positive definite
order parameter, and in particular, in systems with absorbing states. Owing to
the presence of a single minimum in the free energy driving the relaxation
kinetics, there are some basic properties differing from standard phase
separation. We study analytically and numerically this class of systems; in
particular we determine the phase diagram, the growth laws in one and two
dimensions and the presence of scale invariance. Some applications are also
discussed.Comment: Submitted to Europhysics Let
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