The Notion of Person: a Reappraisal from the Side of Human Rights

My aim here is to defend the plausibility of identifying the subject of human rights through the concept of "moral person", by reflecting on the inherent connection between the concept of person and that of human rights in their moral dimension, that is in the light of an "ethics" of human rights, an ethics in which human rights represent the fundamental moral values

Spatiotemporal correlations of earthquakes in the continuum limit of the one-dimensional Burridge-Knopoff model

Spatiotemporal correlations of the one-dimensional spring-block (Burridge-Knopoff) model of earthquakes, either with or without the viscosity term, are studied by means of numerical computer simulations. The continuum limit of the model is examined by systematically investigating the model properties with varying the block-size parameter a toward a\to 0. The Kelvin viscosity term is introduced so that the model dynamics possesses a sensible continuum limit. In the presence of the viscosity term, many of the properties of the original discrete BK model are kept qualitatively unchanged even in the continuum limit, although the size of minimum earthquake gets smaller as a gets smaller. One notable exception is the existence/non-existence of the doughnut-like quiescence prior to the mainshock. Although large events of the original discrete BK model accompany seismic acceleration together with a doughnut-like quiescence just before the mainshock, the spatial range of the doughnut-like quiescence becomes narrower as a gets smaller, and in the continuum limit, the doughnut-like quiescence might vanish altogether. The doughnut-like quiescence observed in the discrete BK model is then a phenomenon closely related to the short-length cut-off scale of the model

AdS/dCFT one-point functions of the SU(3) sector

We propose a closed formula for the tree-level one-point functions of non-protected operators belonging to an SU(3) sub-sector of the defect CFT dual to the D3-D5 probe brane system with background gauge field flux, k, valid for k=2. The formula passes a number of non-trivial analytical and numerical tests. Our proposal is based on expressing the one-point functions as an overlap between a Bethe eigenstate of the SU(3) spin chain and a certain matrix product state, deriving various factorization properties of the Gaudin norm and performing explicit computations for shorter spin chains. As its SU(2) counterpart, the one-point function formula for the SU(3) sub-sector is of determinant type. We discuss the the differences with the SU(2) case and the challenges in extending the present formula beyond k=2.Comment: 6 page

The planar spectrum in U(N)-invariant quantum mechanics by Fock space methods: I. The bosonic case

Prompted by recent results on Susy-U(N)-invariant quantum mechanics in the large N limit by Veneziano and Wosiek, we have examined the planar spectrum in the full Hilbert space of U(N)-invariant states built on the Fock vacuum by applying any U(N)-invariant combinations of creation-operators. We present results about 1) the supersymmetric model in the bosonic sector, 2) the standard quartic Hamiltonian. This latter is useful to check our techniques against the exact result of Brezin et al. The SuSy case is where Fock space methods prove to be the most efficient: it turns out that the problem is separable and the exact planar spectrum can be expressed in terms of the single-trace spectrum. In the case of the anharmonic oscillator, on the other hand, the Fock space analysis is quite cumbersome due to the presence of large off-diagonal O(N) terms coupling subspaces with different number of traces; these terms should be absorbed before taking the planar limit and recovering the known planar spectrum. We give analytical and numerical evidence that good qualitative information on the spectrum can be obtained this way.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, uses youngtab.sty. Final versio

Uniform sampling of steady states in metabolic networks: heterogeneous scales and rounding

The uniform sampling of convex polytopes is an interesting computational problem with many applications in inference from linear constraints, but the performances of sampling algorithms can be affected by ill-conditioning. This is the case of inferring the feasible steady states in models of metabolic networks, since they can show heterogeneous time scales . In this work we focus on rounding procedures based on building an ellipsoid that closely matches the sampling space, that can be used to define an efficient hit-and-run (HR) Markov Chain Monte Carlo. In this way the uniformity of the sampling of the convex space of interest is rigorously guaranteed, at odds with non markovian methods. We analyze and compare three rounding methods in order to sample the feasible steady states of metabolic networks of three models of growing size up to genomic scale. The first is based on principal component analysis (PCA), the second on linear programming (LP) and finally we employ the lovasz ellipsoid method (LEM). Our results show that a rounding procedure is mandatory for the application of the HR in these inference problem and suggest that a combination of LEM or LP with a subsequent PCA perform the best. We finally compare the distributions of the HR with that of two heuristics based on the Artificially Centered hit-and-run (ACHR), gpSampler and optGpSampler. They show a good agreement with the results of the HR for the small network, while on genome scale models present inconsistencies.Comment: Replacement with major revision

The Core-Cusp Problem in Cold Dark Matter Halos and Supernova Feedback: Effects of Oscillation

This study investigates the dynamical response of dark matter (DM) halos to recurrent starbursts in forming less-massive galaxies to solve the core-cusp problem. The gas, which is heated by supernova feedback after a starburst, expands and the star formation then terminates. This expanding gas loses energy by radiative cooling and then falls back toward the galactic center. Subsequently, the starburst is enhanced again. This cycle of expansion and contraction of the interstellar gas leads to a repetitive change in the gravitational potential of the gas. The resonance between DM particles and the density wave excited by the oscillating potential plays a key role in understanding the physical mechanism of the cusp-core transition of DM halos. DM halos effectively gain kinetic energy from the baryon potential through the energy transfer driven by the resonance between the particles and density waves. We determine that the critical condition for the cusp-core transition is such that the oscillation period of the gas potential is approximately the same as the local dynamical time of DM halos. We present the resultant core radius of a DM halo after the cusp-core transition induced by the resonance by using the conventional mass density profile predicted by the cold dark matter models. Moreover, we verify the analytical model by using $N$-body simulations, and the results validate the resonance model.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, 3 table