765 research outputs found
Opposing International Justice: Kenya’s Integrated Backlash Strategy Against the ICC
The government of Kenya has employed a wide range of strategies to undermine the recently-dismissed prosecutions of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto before the International Criminal Court (ICC). This Article argues that these strategies are part of an integrated backlash campaign against the ICC, one that encompasses seemingly unrelated actions in multiple global, regional and national venues. We identify three overarching themes that connect these diverse measures— politicizing complementarity, regionalizing political opposition, and pairing instances of cooperation and condemnation to diffuse accusations of impunity. By linking its discrete acts of opposition to these three themes, the government ultimately increased the effectiveness of its campaign against the Court. Our findings provide new evidence to analyze others instances of backlash against international courts and institutions
Opposing International Justice: Kenya’s Integrated Backlash Strategy Against the ICC
The government of Kenya has employed a wide range of strategies to undermine the recently-dismissed prosecutions of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto before the International Criminal Court (ICC). This Article argues that these strategies are part of an integrated backlash campaign against the ICC, one that encompasses seemingly unrelated actions in multiple global, regional and national venues. We identify three overarching themes that connect these diverse measures— politicizing complementarity, regionalizing political opposition, and pairing instances of cooperation and condemnation to diffuse accusations of impunity. By linking its discrete acts of opposition to these three themes, the government ultimately increased the effectiveness of its campaign against the Court. Our findings provide new evidence to analyze others instances of backlash against international courts and institutions
Formation of Relativistic Axion Stars
Axions and axion-like particles are compelling candidates for the missing
dark matter of the universe. As they undergo gravitational collapse, they can
form compact objects such as axion stars or even black holes. In this paper, we
study the formation and distribution of such objects. First, we simulate the
formation of compact axion stars using numerical relativity with aspherical
initial conditions that could represent the final stages of axion dark matter
structure formation. We show that the final states of such collapse closely
follow the known relationship of initial mass and axion decay constant .
Second, we demonstrate with a toy model how this information can be used to
scan a model density field to predict the number densities and masses of such
compact objects. In addition to being detectable by the LIGO/VIRGO
gravitational wave interferometer network for axion mass of eV, we show using peak statistics that for , there
exists a "mass gap" between the masses of axion stars and black holes formed
from collapse
The electromagnetic field near a dielectric half-space
We compute the expectations of the squares of the electric and magnetic
fields in the vacuum region outside a half-space filled with a uniform
non-dispersive dielectric. This gives predictions for the Casimir-Polder force
on an atom in the `retarded' regime near a dielectric. We also find a positive
energy density due to the electromagnetic field. This would lead, in the case
of two parallel dielectric half-spaces, to a positive, separation-independent
contribution to the energy density, besides the negative, separation-dependent
Casimir energy. Rough estimates suggest that for a very wide range of cases,
perhaps including all realizable ones, the total energy density between the
half-spaces is positive.Comment: Latex2e, IOP macros, 15 pages, 2 eps figure
Non-Gaussian curvature distribution of actin-propelled biomimetric colloid trajectories
We analyze the motion of colloids propelled by a comet-like tail of polymerizing actin filaments. The curvature of the particle trajectories deviates strongly from a Gaussian distribution, implying that the underlying microscopic processes are fluctuating in a non-independent manner. Trajectories for beads of different size all showed the same non-Gaussian behavior, while the mean curvature decreased weakly with size. A stochastic simulation that includes nucleation, force-dependent dissociation, growth, and capping of filaments, shows that the non-Gaussian curvature distribution can be explained by a positive feedback mechanism in which attached chains under higher tension are more likely to sna
Dynamics of viscoelastic membranes
We determine both the in-plane and out-of-plane dynamics of viscoelastic
membranes separating two viscous fluids in order to understand microrheological
studies of such membranes. We demonstrate the general viscoelastic signatures
in the dynamics of shear, bending, and compression modes. We also find a
screening of the otherwise two-dimensional character of the response to point
forces due to the presence of solvent. Finally, we show that there is a linear,
hydrodynamic coupling between the in-plane compression modes of the membrane
and the out-of-plane bending modes in the case where the membrane separates two
different fluids or environments
Insertion reliability studies for the RBC-type control rods in ASTRID
International audienceThis paper reports on preliminary studies performed regarding the insertion reliability of theRBC-type Control Rods designed for the ASTRID Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor. At this stage, the primary aim of the analysis is to evaluate the mechanical behavior of RBC Control Rods under Emergency Shutdown conditions, for which reactor core structures are subjected to significant misalignments (including earthquakeimposed displacements). Using a Finite Element Model based on the Cast3M solver and developed specifically for these studies, computations are performed that allow assessing contact reactions (and the associated friction forces and contact pressures), deformations and stresses (mostly due to bending-induced deformations) which are considered for design. Based on these preliminary results, some optimization of the Control Rod design is proposed that ensures some stable behavior all along the rod drop, with substantial design margin
`Operational' Energy Conditions
I show that a quantized Klein-Gordon field in Minkowski space obeys an
`operational' weak energy condition: the energy of an isolated device
constructed to measure or trap the energy in a region, plus the energy it
measures or traps, cannot be negative. There are good reasons for thinking that
similar results hold locally for linear quantum fields in curved space-times. A
thought experiment to measure energy density is analyzed in some detail, and
the operational positivity is clearly manifested.
If operational energy conditions do hold for quantum fields, then the
negative energy densities predicted by theory have a will-o'-the-wisp
character: any local attempt to verify a total negative energy density will be
self-defeating on account of quantum measurement difficulties. Similarly,
attempts to drive exotic effects (wormholes, violations of the second law,
etc.) by such densities may be defeated by quantum measurement problems. As an
example, I show that certain attempts to violate the Cosmic Censorship
principle by negative energy densities are defeated.
These quantum measurement limitations are investigated in some detail, and
are shown to indicate that space-time cannot be adequately modeled classically
in negative energy density regimes.Comment: 18 pages, plain Tex, IOP macros. Expanded treatment of measurement
problems for space-time, with implications for Cosmic Censorship as an
example. Accepted by Classical and Quantum Gravit
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