4,659 research outputs found
Explaining patterns in the ratification of global environmental treaties
A study was made of the ratification behavior of 160 countries with respect to 38 global environmental treaties. The study identifies and explains patterns in the ratification of treaties, providing two means of assessing the likelihood that any given country will support global environmental treaties. National ratification totals reveal a pattern of high ratification by countries in Western Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. A country's standing within the range of high to low ratification rates can be explained by the statistical model developed in the study. This research allows one to identify countries likely to support global environmental treaties
The Un-Established Establishment Clause: A Circumstantial Approach To Establishment Clause Jurisprudence
The purpose of this Comment is not to suggest a new test for Establishment Clause jurisprudence-there are plenty of well-known scholars who have been engaged in such a task, some for over thirty years. Instead, this Comment will draw an analogy between the Court\u27s Establishment Clause jurisprudence and other regions of the Court\u27s jurisprudence, and recommend a similar approach be taken by the Court in this area in a manner that would bring order to chaos, yet maintain the flexibility the Court desires. Part II discusses the modern approach to issues arising under the Establishment Clause, which includes the modern tests and their origin. Part III explores the problems these multiple approaches have created. Part IV addresses the need for consistency. The circumstantial approach is introduced and discussed in Part V, which is followed by the conclusion in Part VI
The Impact of Spatial Variation in Land Use Patterns and Aquifer Characteristics on the Agricultural Cost of Groundwater Conservation for the Southern Ogallala Aquifer
Land Economics/Use,
Estimating the Social Welfare Effects of New Zealand Apple Imports
This paper provides a demonstration of how a comprehensive economic framework, which takes into account both the gains from trade and the costs of invasive species outbreaks, can inform decision-makers when making quarantine decisions. Using the theoretical framework developed in Cook and Fraser (2008) an empirical estimation is made of the economic welfare consequences for Australia of allowing quarantine-restricted trade in New Zealand apples to take place. The results suggest the returns to Australian society from importing New Zealand apples are likely to be negative. The price differential between the landed product with SPS measures in place and the autarkic price is insufficient to outweigh the increase in expected damage resulting from increased fire blight risk. As a consequence, this empirical analysis suggests the net benefits created by opening up this trade are marginal.International Relations/Trade,
Comparison of Rotary Valve and Blowtank Feed Rate Capacities
Rotary valves and blowtanks are widely used in industry for the pneumatic conveying of products, each having their pros and cons depending on the required application. This paper aims to show the differing results that can be obtained when conveying a product through a common pipeline using either a drop-through rotary valve or a bottom discharge blowtank. The rotary valve system has a number of issues, the main one being air leakage effects, whereas the blowtank system does not as it is an enclosed unit. The results of these experiments showed dramatic differences in product tonnage
Preparing ground states of quantum many-body systems on a quantum computer
Preparing the ground state of a system of interacting classical particles is
an NP-hard problem. Thus, there is in general no better algorithm to solve this
problem than exhaustively going through all N configurations of the system to
determine the one with lowest energy, requiring a running time proportional to
N. A quantum computer, if it could be built, could solve this problem in time
sqrt(N). Here, we present a powerful extension of this result to the case of
interacting quantum particles, demonstrating that a quantum computer can
prepare the ground state of a quantum system as efficiently as it does for
classical systems.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur
Modifying the Einstein Equations off the Constraint Hypersuface
A new technique is presented for modifying the Einstein evolution equations
off the constraint hypersurface. With this approach the evolution equations for
the constraints can be specified freely. The equations of motion for the
gravitational field variables are modified by the addition of terms that are
linear and nonlocal in the constraints. These terms are obtained from solutions
of the linearized Einstein constraints.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, uses REVTe
An App for Third Party Beneficiaries
Every year, more than 100 reported court opinions consider the question of whether an outsider can sue for damages under a contract made by others—in part because the law is so ambiguous. While contract enforcement by a third party is controlled largely by the facts of the particular case, it also materially depends upon the relevant legal standards. At present, not just the standards, but also the reasons for these standards, are unclear. Eighty years ago, Lon Fuller, a professor teaching contracts at a then-Southern law school, and William Perdue, a student at that school, significantly clarified and improved decision-making on damages issues in contract law by proposing a new vocabulary and analytical model. The senior author of this Article is a professor at a Southern law school, but he does not need an academic Lloyd Bentsen to tell him that he is “no Lon Fuller,” and the younger co-authors hold no “William Perdue illusion,” given that Mr. Perdue was the father-in-law of their law school dean. Nonetheless, we believe that the new vocabulary and analytical model we are proposing would clarify and improve decision-making on third party contract rights
Gravitational waves from Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals in non-pure Kerr spacetimes
To investigate the imprint on the gravitational-wave emission from extreme
mass-ratio inspirals in non-pure Kerr spacetimes, we have studied the
``kludge'' waveforms generated in highly-accurate, numerically-generated
spacetimes containing a black hole and a self-gravitating, homogeneous torus
with comparable mass and spin. In order to maximize their impact on the
produced waveforms, we have considered tori that are compact, massive and close
to the central black hole, investigating under what conditions the LISA
experiment could detect their presence. Our results show that for a large
portion of the space of parameters the waveforms produced by EMRIs in these
black hole-torus systems are indistinguishable from pure-Kerr waveforms. Hence,
a ``confusion problem'' will be present for observations carried out over a
timescale below or comparable to the dephasing time.Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures. Short discussion on the accuracy of the
spacetimes added, typos corrected. Accepted for publication in PR
Empirical ugri-UBVRc Transformations for Galaxies
We present empirical color transformations between Sloan Digital Sky Survey
ugri and Johnson-Cousins UBVRc photometry for nearby galaxies (D < 11 Mpc). We
use the Local Volume Legacy (LVL) galaxy sample where there are 90 galaxies
with overlapping observational coverage for these two filter sets. The LVL
galaxy sample consists of normal, non-starbursting galaxies. We also examine
how well the LVL galaxy colors are described by previous transformations
derived from standard calibration stars and model-based galaxy templates. We
find significant galaxy color scatter around most of the previous
transformation relationships. In addition, the previous transformations show
systematic offsets between transformed and observed galaxy colors which are
visible in observed color-color trends. The LVL-based transformations
show no systematic color offsets and reproduce the observed color-color galaxy
trends.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS (9 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables
- …