Global Democracy: Normative and Empirical Perspectives

Democracy is increasingly seen as the only legitimate form of government, but few people would regard international relations as governed according to democratic principles. Can this lack of global democracy be justified? Which models of global politics should contemporary democrats endorse and which should they reject? What are the most promising pathways to global democratic change? To what extent does the extension of democracy from the national to the international level require a radical rethinking of what democratic institutions should be? This book answers these questions by providing a sustained dialogue between scholars of political theory, international law, and empirical social science. By presenting a broad range of views by prominent scholars, it offers an in-depth analysis of one of the key challenges of our century: globalizing democracy and democratizing globalization

CP Tagged Decays at SuperBaBar

We explore the possibility of measuring the CKM parameter gamma using CP tagged decays at a very high luminosity e+e- B Factory. A new collider capable of integrating as much as 10 inverse attobarns per year is being discussed as a possible future for SLAC beyond the current PEP-II program, and could also be in the future of KEK. In two years of operation, it could be possible for a successor to BaBar or Belle to accumulate a sample of one million CP tagged B decays. We find that a theoretically clean extraction of gamma with uncertainty less than 5 degrees may be achievable in the analysis of such a data set.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures; minimal revisions for version to appear in Physical Review D, all formulas and conclusions unchange

Dynamic instabilities of fracture under biaxial strain using a phase field model

We present a phase field model of the propagation of fracture under plane strain. This model, based on simple physical considerations, is able to accurately reproduce the different behavior of cracks (the principle of local symmetry, the Griffith and Irwin criteria, and mode-I branching). In addition, we test our model against recent experimental findings showing the presence of oscillating cracks under bi-axial load. Our model again reproduces well observed supercritical Hopf bifurcation, and is therefore the first simulation which does so

Modeling surf zone tracer plumes : 2. Transport and dispersion

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 116 (2011): C11028, doi:10.1029/2011JC007211.Five surf zone dye tracer releases from the HB06 experiment are simulated with a tracer advection diffusion model coupled to a Boussinesq surf zone model (funwaveC). Model tracer is transported and stirred by currents and eddies and diffused with a breaking wave eddy diffusivity, set equal to the breaking wave eddy viscosity, and a small (0.01 m2 s−1) background diffusivity. Observed and modeled alongshore parallel tracer plumes, transported by the wave driven alongshore current, have qualitatively similar cross-shore structures. Although the model skill for mean tracer concentration is variable (from negative to 0.73) depending upon release, cross-shore integrated tracer moments (normalized by the cross-shore tracer integral) have consistently high skills (≈0.9). Modeled and observed bulk surf zone cross-shore diffusivity estimates are also similar, with 0.72 squared correlation and skill of 0.4. Similar to the observations, the model bulk (absolute) cross-shore diffusivity is consistent with a mixing length parameterization based on low-frequency (0.001–0.03 Hz) eddies. The model absolute cross-shore dispersion is dominated by stirring from surf zone eddies and does not depend upon the presence of the breaking wave eddy diffusivity. Given only the bathymetry and incident wave field, the coupled Boussinesq-tracer model qualitatively reproduces the observed cross-shore absolute tracer dispersion, suggesting that the model can be used to study surf zone tracer dispersion mechanisms.This research was supported by SCCOOS, CA Coastal Conservancy, NOAA, NSF, ONR, and CA Sea Grant.2012-05-1

Using tourism free-choice learning experiences to promote environmentally sustainable behaviour: The role of post-visit ‘action resources’

This paper argues the need for the providers of ecotourism and other free‐choice environmental learning experiences to promote the adoption of environmentally sustainable actions beyond their own sites, when visitors return to their home environments. Previous research indicates that although visitors often leave such experiences with a heightened awareness of conservation issues and intentions to adopt environmentally responsible behaviours, only a minority translate these intentions into real actions. Building on research and theory in relation to visitor experiences in free‐choice learning environments, the paper identifies three different stages in the educational process and proposes a strategy for facilitating the translation of visitors' behavioural intentions into the adoption of sustainable actions through the provision of post‐visit action resources

Phenomenological Study of Strong Decays of Heavy Hadrons in Heavy Quark Effective Theory

The application of the tensor formalism of the heavy quark effective theory (HQET) at leading order to strong decays of heavy hadrons is presented. Comparisons between experimental and theoretical predictions of ratios of decay rates for B mesons, D mesons and kaons are given. The application of HQET to strange mesons presents some encouraging results. The spin-flavor symmetry is used to predict some decay rates that have not yet been measured.Comment: 10 page

Elastic effects on relaxation volume tensor calculations

Relaxation volume tensors quantify the effect of stress on diffusion of crystal defects. Continuum linear elasticity predicts that calculations of these parameters using periodic boundary conditions do not suffer from systematic deviations due to elastic image effects and should be independent of supercell size or symmetry. In practice, however, calculations of formation volume tensors of the interstitial in Stillinger-Weber silicon demonstrate that changes in bonding at the defect affect the elastic moduli and result in system-size dependent relaxation volumes. These vary with the inverse of the system size. Knowing the rate of convergence permits accurate estimates of these quantities from modestly sized calculations. Furthermore, within the continuum linear elasticity assumptions the average stress can be used to estimate the relaxation volume tensor from constant volume calculations.Comment: 31 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Analytical modeling of large-angle CMBR anisotropies from textures

We propose an analytic method for predicting the large angle CMBR temperature fluctuations induced by model textures. The model makes use of only a small number of phenomenological parameters which ought to be measured from simple simulations. We derive semi-analytically the $C^l$-spectrum for $2\leq l\leq 30$ together with its associated non-Gaussian cosmic variance error bars. A slightly tilted spectrum with an extra suppression at low $l$ is found, and we investigate the dependence of the tilt on the parameters of the model. We also produce a prediction for the two point correlation function. We find a high level of cosmic confusion between texture scenarios and standard inflationary theories in any of these quantities. However, we discover that a distinctive non-Gaussian signal ought to be expected at low $l$, reflecting the prominent effect of the last texture in these multipoles