7,814 research outputs found
Just war and military morale: a brief reflection on the correlation between the legality of war and the moral repercussions for members of US and UK forces arising from the questionable legality of the campaign Iraqi Freedom of March 2003
Does it matter to a member of the military whether the military
campaign in which he is taking part is lawful or not? Despite the observation that
the crime of aggression (post Kampala 2010) constitutes a ‘leadership crime par
excellence,’ which limits any (future) criminal responsibility accordingly, the
legality or illegality of any military action under international law can create moral
implications for the common foot soldier and mid-level officer and also have a
tangible impact on the national legal frameworks under which these forces operate.
This short article uses the example of Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003) to discuss the repercussions of a—most likely—illegal military campaign for individual members
of democratic armed forces before the background of the present discussion of NATO led action in Libya
Using Life History and Ecology as Tools to Manage a Threatened Salamander Species
Selected aspects of the life history and ecology of the small-mouthed salamander (Ambystoma texanum Matthes) relevant to the management of this threatened species in Iowa are presented. The population studied utilizes flooded woodland habitat during courtship, breeding and egg laying, and during the entire larval period. Larval foraging strategies in this habitat included ontogenetic but no diel shifts in prey selection. Synchronous, nocturnal breeding migration allowed effective use of drift fences fur capture of adults used in captive breeding, courtship behavior studies, and the estimation of breeding population size. Large numbers of spennatophores, apparently indiscriminate mate choice, and the relatively large number of eggs produced by females makes captive breeding programs potentially very successful. Because larvae are particularly vulnerable to predation by fish and larval tiger salamanders, ephemeral ponds are required for breeding and larval habitat. The primary management objective should be to preserve ephemeral woodland ponds and adjacent terrestrial habitat favorable for larval and adult survival
Microcanonical entropy inflection points: Key to systematic understanding of transitions in finite systems
We introduce a systematic classification method for the analogs of phase
transitions in finite systems. This completely general analysis, which is
applicable to any physical system and extends towards the thermodynamic limit,
is based on the microcanonical entropy and its energetic derivative, the
inverse caloric temperature. Inflection points of this quantity signal
cooperative activity and thus serve as distinct indicators of transitions. We
demonstrate the power of this method through application to the long-standing
problem of liquid-solid transitions in elastic, flexible homopolymers.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Bankrupting terrorism: the role of US anti-terrorism litigation in the prevention of terrorism and other hybrid threats: a legal assessment and outlook
Global terrorist networks are dependent on receiving financial support from a variety of sources, including individuals, charities and corporations. Also known as terrorist financing, the potential of terrorism finance to resemble a global threat has been recognised and also its closeness to other international crimes such as money laundering and organized crime. As a result, possible responses have to constitute co-ordinated, multi-lateral and multi faceted actions under the umbrella of a wide range of international stakeholders such as the United Nations Security Council and the Financial Action Task Force. Combating terrorism requires a ‘holistic’ approach which allows for a mix of possible responses. Besides “kinetic” security operations (such as targeted killings) and the adoption of criminal prosecution measures another possible response could be the use of US styled transnational civil litigation by victims of terrorism against both, terrorist groups and their sponsors. Corporations, both profit and non profit, such as banks and other legal entities, as well as individuals, are often complicit in international terrorism in a role of aiders and abettors by providing financial assistance to the perpetrators (cf. UN Al-Qaida Sanctions List: The List established and maintained by the 1267 Committee with respect to individuals, groups, undertakings and other entities associated with Al-Qaida). Such collusion in acts of terrorism gains additional importance against the background of so called “Hybrid Threats”, NATO’s new concept of identifying and countering new threats arising from multi-level threat scenarios. This article discusses the potential impact of US terrorism lawsuits for the global fight against terrorism
Conformational Mechanics of Polymer Adsorption Transitions at Attractive Substrates
Conformational phases of a semiflexible off-lattice homopolymer model near an
attractive substrate are investigated by means of multicanonical computer
simulations. In our polymer-substrate model, nonbonded pairs of monomers as
well as monomers and the substrate interact via attractive van der Waals
forces. To characterize conformational phases of this hybrid system, we analyze
thermal fluctuations of energetic and structural quantities, as well as
adequate docking parameters. Introducing a solvent parameter related to the
strength of the surface attraction, we construct and discuss the
solubility-temperature phase diagram. Apart from the main phases of adsorbed
and desorbed conformations, we identify several other phase transitions such as
the freezing transition between energy-dominated crystalline low-temperature
structures and globular entropy-dominated conformations.Comment: 13 pages, 15 figure
Multicanonical Study of Coarse-Grained Off-Lattice Models for Folding Heteropolymers
We have performed multicanonical simulations of hydrophobic-hydrophilic
heteropolymers with two simple effective, coarse-grained off-lattice models to
study the influence of specific interactions in the models on conformational
transitions of selected sequences with 20 monomers. Another aspect of the
investigation was the comparison with the purely hydrophobic homopolymer and
the study of general conformational properties induced by the "disorder" in the
sequence of a heteropolymer. Furthermore, we applied an optimization algorithm
to sequences with up to 55 monomers and compared the global-energy minimum
found with lowest-energy states identified within the multicanonical
simulation. This was used to find out how reliable the multicanonical method
samples the free-energy landscape, in particular for low temperatures.Comment: 11 pages, RevTeX, 10 Postscript figures, Author Information under
http://www.physik.uni-leipzig.de/index.php?id=2
Genetic analysis of aMicroseris douglasii (Asteraceae) population polymorphic for an alien chloroplast type
Measurement of the magnetic octupole susceptibility of PrV2Al20
In the electromagnetic multipole expansion, magnetic octupoles are the
subsequent order of magnetic multipoles allowed in centrosymmetric systems,
following the more commonly observed magnetic dipoles. As order parameters in
condensed matter systems, magnetic octupoles have been experimentally elusive.
In particular, the lack of simple external fields that directly couple to them
makes their experimental detection challenging. Here, we demonstrate a
methodology for probing the magnetic octupole susceptibility using a product of
magnetic field and shear strain to couple to the
octupolar fluctuations, while using an adiabatic elastocaloric effect to probe
the response to this composite effective field. We observe a Curie-Weiss
behavior in the obtained octupolar susceptibility of \ce{PrV2Al20} up to
temperatures approximately forty times the putative octupole ordering
temperature. Our results demonstrate the presence of magnetic octupole
fluctuations in the particular material system, and more broadly highlight how
anisotropic strain can be combined with magnetic fields to formulate a
versatile probe to observe otherwise elusive emergent `hidden' electronic
orders.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure
Compatibility of Einstein minimally coupled self interacting scalar field theory with the solar system tests of gravity
We examine the compatibility of the Einstein minimally coupled
self-interacting scalar field theory with the local tests of gravity. We find
that apart from the trivial case of the Schwarzschild-de Sitter solution with
constant scalar field the theory does not admit any other static solution,
which is consistent with the solar system tests of gravity.Comment: 6 pages, a part of the earlier version removed, final version
accepeted by CQ
Electronic in-plane symmetry breaking at field-tuned quantum criticality in CeRhIn5
Electronic nematics are exotic states of matter where electronic interactions
break a rotational symmetry of the underlying lattice, in analogy to the
directional alignment without translational order in nematic liquid crystals.
Intriguingly such phases appear in the copper- and iron-based superconductors,
and their role in establishing high-temperature superconductivity remains an
open question. Nematicity may take an active part, cooperating or competing
with superconductivity, or may appear accidentally in such systems. Here we
present experimental evidence for a phase of nematic character in the heavy
fermion superconductor CeRhIn5. We observe a field-induced breaking of the
electronic tetragonal symmetry of in the vicinity of an antiferromagnetic (AFM)
quantum phase transition at Hc~50T. This phase appears in out-of-plane fields
of H*~28T and is characterized by substantial in-plane resistivity anisotropy.
The anisotropy can be aligned by a small in-plane field component, with no
apparent connection to the underlying crystal structure. Furthermore no
anomalies are observed in the magnetic torque, suggesting the absence of
metamagnetic transitions in this field range. These observations are indicative
of an electronic nematic character of the high field state in CeRhIn5. The
appearance of nematic behavior in a phenotypical heavy fermion superconductor
highlights the interrelation of nematicity and unconventional
superconductivity, suggesting nematicity to be a commonality in such materials
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