Renewal through Participation in Global Food Security Governance: Implementing the International Food Security and Nutrition Civil Society Mechanism to the Committee on World Food Security

The food commodity price rises from 2006 to 2008 engendered a period of political renewal and reform in the governance of global food security. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) was designated as the main international forum dealing with food security and nutrition in 2009 as part of this reform. Through the CFS reform process, civil society organizations secured the right to co-ordinate autonomously their engagement in the Committee as official participants and are doing so through the International Food Security and Nutrition Civil Society Mechanism (CSM). The CSM is an innovative institutional form designed to allow a broad range of civil society organizations from different regions of the world and from diverse constituencies, notably those who face food insecurity on a regular basis, to participate in global food security governance. The challenges and complexities of setting up and operationalizing the CSM are presented and illustrated. These findings are considered in the context of the longer-term move towards widening participation in global governance, with a particular focus on the trajectory of civil society participation in food security governance. The broad neo-liberal logic, or embedded neo-liberalism, that underpins contemporary world politics provides boundaries within which the innovative CSM is being given shape through the political agency of the participating civil society organizations. The study concludes by suggesting that while the Civil Society Mechanism faces some internal challenges, these are not insurmountable, and that the CSM represents an effective politicizing, engaging and connecting model for food-focused civil society organization entering into global governance

Two-dimensional structure in a generic model of triangular proteins and protein trimers

Motivated by the diversity and complexity of two-dimensional crystals formed by triangular proteins and protein trimers, we have investigated the structures and phase behavior of hard-disk trimers. In order to mimic specific binding interactions, each trimer possesses on `attractive' disk which can interact with similar disks on other trimers via an attractive square-well potential. At low density and low temperature, the fluid phase mainly consists of tetramers, pentamers, or hexamers. Hexamers provide the structural motif for a high-density, low-temperature periodic solid phase, but we also identify a metastable periodic structure based on a tetramer motif. At high density there is a transition between orientationally ordered and disordered solid phases. The connections between simulated structures and those of 2D protein crystals -- as seen in electron microscopy -- are briefly discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Non-uniform convergence of two-photon decay rates for excited atomic states

Two-photon decay rates in simple atoms such as hydrogenlike systems represent rather interesting fundamental problems in atomic physics. The sum of the energies of the two emitted photons has to fulfill an energy conservation condition, the decay takes place via intermediate virtual states, and the total decay rate is obtained after an integration over the energy of one of the emitted photons. Here, we investigate cases with a virtual state having an energy intermediate between the initial and the final state of the decay process, and we show that due to non-uniform convergence, only a careful treatment of the singularities infinitesimally displaced from the photon integration contour leads to consistent and convergent results.Comment: 3 pages; LaTe

Automorphisms of Partially Commutative Groups II: Combinatorial Subgroups

We define several "standard" subgroups of the automorphism group Aut(G) of a partially commutative (right-angled Artin) group and use these standard subgroups to describe decompositions of Aut(G). If C is the commutation graph of G, we show how Aut(G) decomposes in terms of the connected components of C: obtaining a particularly clear decomposition theorem in the special case where C has no isolated vertices. If C has no vertices of a type we call dominated then we give a semi-direct decompostion of Aut(G) into a subgroup of locally conjugating automorphisms by the subgroup stabilising a certain lattice of "admissible subsets" of the vertices of C. We then characterise those graphs for which Aut(G) is a product (not necessarily semi-direct) of two such subgroups.Comment: 7 figures, 63 pages. Notation and definitions clarified and typos corrected. 2 new figures added. Appendix containing details of presentation and proof of a theorem adde

Inside Money, Procyclical Leverage, and Banking Catastrophes

We explore a model of the interaction between banks and outside investors in which the ability of banks to issue inside money (short-term liabilities believed to be convertible into currency at par) can generate a collapse in asset prices and widespread bank insolvency. The banks and investors share a common belief about the future value of certain long-term assets, but they have different objective functions; changes to this common belief result in portfolio adjustments and trade. Positive belief shocks induce banks to buy risky assets from investors, and the banks finance those purchases by issuing new short-term liabilities. Negative belief shocks induce banks to sell assets in order to reduce their chance of insolvency to a tolerably low level, and they supply more assets at lower prices, which can result in multiple market-clearing prices. A sufficiently severe negative shock causes the set of equilibrium prices to contract (in a manner given by a cusp catastrophe), causing prices to plummet discontinuously and banks to become insolvent. Successive positive and negative shocks of equal magnitude do not cancel; rather, a banking catastrophe can occur even if beliefs simply return to their initial state. Capital requirements can prevent crises by curtailing the expansion of balance sheets when beliefs become more optimistic, but they can also force larger price declines. Emergency asset price supports can be understood as attempts by a central bank to coordinate expectations on an equilibrium with solvency.Comment: 31 pages, 10 figure

Chemistry on the inside: green chemistry in mesoporous materials

An overview of the rapidly expanding area of tailored mesoporous solids is presented. The synthesis of a wide range of the materials is covered, both inorganically and organically modified. Their applications, in particular those relating to green chemistry, are also highlighted. Finally, potential future directions for these materials are discussed

The Populations of Comet-Like Bodies in the Solar system

A new classification scheme is introduced for comet-like bodies in the Solar system. It covers the traditional comets as well as the Centaurs and Edgeworth-Kuiper belt objects. At low inclinations, close encounters with planets often result in near-constant perihelion or aphelion distances, or in perihelion-aphelion interchanges, so the minor bodies can be labelled according to the planets predominantly controlling them at perihelion and aphelion. For example, a JN object has a perihelion under the control of Jupiter and aphelion under the control of Neptune, and so on. This provides 20 dynamically distinct categories of outer Solar system objects in the Jovian and trans-Jovian regions. The Tisserand parameter with respect to the planet controlling perihelion is also often roughly constant under orbital evolution. So, each category can be further sub-divided according to the Tisserand parameter. The dynamical evolution of comets, however, is dominated not by the planets nearest at perihelion or aphelion, but by the more massive Jupiter. The comets are separated into four categories -- Encke-type, short-period, intermediate and long-period -- according to aphelion distance. The Tisserand parameter categories now roughly correspond to the well-known Jupiter-family comets, transition-types and Halley-types. In this way, the nomenclature for the Centaurs and Edgeworth-Kuiper belt objects is based on, and consistent with, that for comets.Comment: MNRAS, in press, 11 pages, 6 figures (1 available as postscript, 5 as gif). Higher resolution figures available at http://www-thphys.physics.ox.ac.uk/users/WynEvans/preprints.pd