Legal Professional Privilege: Is It Absolute?

Legal Professional Privilege ('LPP') is deeply rooted in the common law and has even been described as a right of a constitutional nature. In the recent decision of the Three Rivers case (2005), Lord Scott described LPP as an 'absolute right', subject only to the well established crime / fraud exception. In another decision, Taylor CJ opined that once LPP is established, it is not subject to any further balancing exercise. In contrast, the Canadian Supreme Court refused to adopt the same approach and decided to subject LPP to the same proportionality exercise as any fundamental constitutional right. This article explores the scope of LPP and argues that the Canadian approach should be preferred. While the Canadian approach seems to have been endorsed by the Court of Final Appeal in a recent disciplinary appeal, it criticises the Court of Final Appeal for having swung the pendulum too far by adopting a relatively loose standard to allow LPP to be abrogated. Finally, it explores how the Court should approach an application for a warrant to conduct covert surveillance under the newly adopted Interception of Communication and Surveillance Ordinance 2005 when such covert surveillance may interfere with LPP.published_or_final_versio

Characterization of Moment of Inertia Variations by Holographic Interferometry

Holographic interferometry (HI) is a powerful tool for mapping of surface defects. In conjunction with various stressing techniques [l–4], it offers an NDT tool for the detection of flaws within the volume of materials. The method is advantageous for integrity characterization of components to serve under mechanical stress, where the detailed shape, size and depth of the flaw within the material are of no interest. For most applications, where integrity is tested, the moment of inertia may be used as a measure for classification of the product and for the estimation of its reliability. The presence of volumetric flaws, when the sample is under loading, is expressed in the holographic interferogram. The exterma of the fringe pattern are used for determination of the displacement distribution. The second derivative of the displacement distribution is related to the bending moment and the moment of inertia. The moment of inertia may be further processed to obtain a function free from degrading influence of the specific measuring system employed [5]

Beyond Gross-Pitaevskii Mean Field Theory

A large number of effects related to the phenomenon of Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) can be understood in terms of lowest order mean field theory, whereby the entire system is assumed to be condensed, with thermal and quantum fluctuations completely ignored. Such a treatment leads to the Gross-Pitaevskii Equation (GPE) used extensively throughout this book. Although this theory works remarkably well for a broad range of experimental parameters, a more complete treatment is required for understanding various experiments, including experiments with solitons and vortices. Such treatments should include the dynamical coupling of the condensate to the thermal cloud, the effect of dimensionality, the role of quantum fluctuations, and should also describe the critical regime, including the process of condensate formation. The aim of this Chapter is to give a brief but insightful overview of various recent theories, which extend beyond the GPE. To keep the discussion brief, only the main notions and conclusions will be presented. This Chapter generalizes the presentation of Chapter 1, by explicitly maintaining fluctuations around the condensate order parameter. While the theoretical arguments outlined here are generic, the emphasis is on approaches suitable for describing single weakly-interacting atomic Bose gases in harmonic traps. Interesting effects arising when condensates are trapped in double-well potentials and optical lattices, as well as the cases of spinor condensates, and atomic-molecular coupling, along with the modified or alternative theories needed to describe them, will not be covered here.Comment: Review Article (19 Pages) - To appear in 'Emergent Nonlinear Phenomena in Bose-Einstein Condensates: Theory and Experiment', Edited by P.G. Kevrekidis, D.J. Frantzeskakis and R. Carretero-Gonzalez (Springer Verlag

The deuteron: structure and form factors

A brief review of the history of the discovery of the deuteron in provided. The current status of both experiment and theory for the elastic electron scattering is then presented.Comment: 80 pages, 33 figures, submited to Advances in Nuclear Physic

Strongly magnetized pulsars: explosive events and evolution

Well before the radio discovery of pulsars offered the first observational confirmation for their existence (Hewish et al., 1968), it had been suggested that neutron stars might be endowed with very strong magnetic fields of $10^{10}$-$10^{14}$G (Hoyle et al., 1964; Pacini, 1967). It is because of their magnetic fields that these otherwise small ed inert, cooling dead stars emit radio pulses and shine in various part of the electromagnetic spectrum. But the presence of a strong magnetic field has more subtle and sometimes dramatic consequences: In the last decades of observations indeed, evidence mounted that it is likely the magnetic field that makes of an isolated neutron star what it is among the different observational manifestations in which they come. The contribution of the magnetic field to the energy budget of the neutron star can be comparable or even exceed the available kinetic energy. The most magnetised neutron stars in particular, the magnetars, exhibit an amazing assortment of explosive events, underlining the importance of their magnetic field in their lives. In this chapter we review the recent observational and theoretical achievements, which not only confirmed the importance of the magnetic field in the evolution of neutron stars, but also provide a promising unification scheme for the different observational manifestations in which they appear. We focus on the role of their magnetic field as an energy source behind their persistent emission, but also its critical role in explosive events.Comment: Review commissioned for publication in the White Book of "NewCompStar" European COST Action MP1304, 43 pages, 8 figure

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Measurement of jet fragmentation into charged particles in pp and PbPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV

Jet fragmentation in pp and PbPb collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV per nucleon pair was studied using data collected with the CMS detector at the LHC. Fragmentation functions are constructed using charged-particle tracks with transverse momenta pt > 4 GeV for dijet events with a leading jet of pt > 100 GeV. The fragmentation functions in PbPb events are compared to those in pp data as a function of collision centrality, as well as dijet-pt imbalance. Special emphasis is placed on the most central PbPb events including dijets with unbalanced momentum, indicative of energy loss of the hard scattered parent partons. The fragmentation patterns for both the leading and subleading jets in PbPb collisions agree with those seen in pp data at 2.76 TeV. The results provide evidence that, despite the large parton energy loss observed in PbPb collisions, the partition of the remaining momentum within the jet cone into high-pt particles is not strongly modified in comparison to that observed for jets in vacuum.Comment: Submitted to the Journal of High Energy Physic

On the coupling of local 3D solutions and global 2D shell theory in structural mechanics

Most of mechanical systems and complex structures exhibit plate and shell components. Therefore, 2D simulation, based on plate and shell theory, appears as an appealing choice in structural analysis as it allows reducing the computational complexity. Nevertheless, this 2D framework fails for capturing rich physics compromising the usual hypotheses considered when deriving standard plate and shell theories. To circumvent, or at least alleviate this issue, authors proposed in their former works an in-plane-out-of-plane separated representation able to capture rich 3D behaviors while keeping the computational complexity of 2D simulations. However, that procedure it was revealed to be too intrusive for being introduced into existing commercial softwares. Moreover, experience indicated that such enriched descriptions are only compulsory locally, in some regions or structure components. In the present paper we propose an enrichment procedure able to address 3D local behaviors, preserving the direct minimally-invasive coupling with existing plate and shell discretizations. The proposed strategy will be extended to inelastic behaviors and structural dynamics

The Function of Hypoxia-Inducible Factor (HIF) Is Independent of the Endoplasmic Reticulum Protein OS-9

The protein “amplified in osteosarcoma-9” (OS-9) has been shown previously to interact with the prolyl hydroxylases PHD2 and PHD3. These enzymes initiate oxygen-dependent degradation of the α-subunit of hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF), a transcription factor that adapts cells to insufficient oxygen supply (hypoxia). A new model has been proposed where OS-9 triggers PHD dependent degradation of HIF-α. It was the aim of our study to define the molecular mode of action of OS-9 in the regulation of PHD and HIF activity. Although initial co-immunoprecipitation experiments confirmed physical interaction between OS-9 and PHD2, neither overexpression nor lentiviral inhibition of OS-9 expression affected HIF regulation. Subcellular localization experiments revealed a distinct reticular staining pattern for OS-9 while PHD2 was mainly localized in the cytoplasm. Further cell fractionation experiments and glycosylation tests indicated that OS-9 is a luminal ER protein. In vivo protein interaction analysis by fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) showed no significant physical interaction of overexpressed PHD2-CFP and OS-9-YFP. We conclude that OS-9 plays no direct functional role in HIF degradation since physical interaction of OS-9 with oxygen sensing HIF prolyl hydroxylases cannot occur in vivo due to their different subcellular localization