Modeling groundwater with ocean and river interaction

We develop and implement the groundwater model, Saturated/Unsaturated Flow and Transport in 3D (SUFT3D), to integrate water quantity/quality data and simulations with models of other hydrologic cycle components, namely, rivers and the ocean. This work was done as part of the Sea Air Land Modeling Operational Network (SALMON) project supported by the IBM International Foundation through its Environmental Research Program. The first research steps, presented here, address the simulation of typical hydrologic conditions to demonstrate SUFT3D's effectiveness and accuracy. The theory behind the modeling of seawater intrusion and groundwater-river interaction is summarized along with the numerical methods and characteristics of SUFT3D. The code was applied to different, increasingly complex scenarios: confined to unconfined conditions, local to regional scale, homogeneous to increasing heterogeneity, two- to three-dimensional. Of particular interest were the impacts of different boundary conditions and influence of river interactions on seawater intrusion. Results are illustrated, discussed, and compared, when possible, to those in the literature. Simulating groundwater exchange between both the river and the ocean has provided interesting results that better depict the dynamics of flow and transport in coastal zone groundwater systems

Les aspects procéduraux de la participation des victimes à la répression des crimes internationaux

La participation des victimes aux procès internationaux pénaux est une nouveauté de la Cour pénale internationale. Elle s’étend désormais aux Chambres extraordinaires au sein des tribunaux cambodgiens et au Tribunal spécial pour le Liban. Dans le texte qui suit, l’auteur affirme que, par cette innovation, le droit international pénal évolue vers un dédoublement de l’objet du procès. Sa fonction, à la base punitive, intègre désormais une dimension réparatrice significative. Elle augure un effet horizontal de la procédure pénale qui entraîne une confrontation entre l’accusé et les victimes. L’auteur analyse l’étendue des droits procéduraux qui rendent compte de cette confrontation. Dans la première partie de son étude, il explore les problématiques relatives à l’accès des victimes aux tribunaux internationaux et souligne les raisons pour lesquelles elles n’ont pu avoir un rôle actif dans la procédure du Tribunal pénal international pour l’ex-Yougoslavie, du Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda et du Tribunal spécial pour la Sierra Leone. Dans la seconde partie, il approfondit sa réflexion sur la portée des droits de participation effectivement reconnus aux victimes. Bien qu’ils s’articulent et s’exercent différemment selon les tribunaux, ces droits constituent, en conclut l’auteur, le trait commun qui traduit un souci profond de la communauté internationale de rendre les victimes parties prenantes de l’établissement de la vérité au sujet des atrocités endurées à l’occasion de conflits armés.The participation of victims in international criminal proceedings is a novelty of the International Criminal Court. It now extends to the Extraordinary Chambers in the courts of Cambodia and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. In the ensuing article, the author argues that through this innovation, international criminal law is evolving towards a duplication of the object of the trial. While its primary function remains punitive, the trial now includes a significant restorative dimension. It portends a horizontal effect of the criminal proceedings resulting in a confrontation between the accused and victims. The author analyzes the scope of procedural rights that reflect this confrontation. In the first section, he explores issues relating to victims’ access to international tribunals and underlines the reasons why they had not been given an active role in the proceedings of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Special Tribunal for Sierra Leone. In the second section, the author develops a reflection on the scope of rights of participation effectively granted to victims. Although they are structured and carried out differently in different courts, these rights are, concludes the author, the common trait that reflects a deep concern of the international community to make victims part of establishing the truth about the atrocities suffered in connection with armed conflicts

A New Definition for the Concept of Role, and Why it Makes Sense

There is widespread agreement in the object community that the concept of role is important for object modelling, but little agreement about what is to be understood by a role. In this paper, we present a new definition for the concept of role in the context of ISOs RM-ODP Foundations for object modelling. We show that the concept of role is similar to that of interface, but that there important differences between these two concepts. We also provide definitions for concepts, related to the role concept, that may also be called roles: role type and role object type. We then make the case for our definitions, showing that they are largely compatible with assertions that exist in the literature about roles

Variational Formulation and Upper Bounds for Degenerate Scales in Plane Elasticity

International audienceDegenerate scales appear when certain plane boundary value problems solved using Boundary Integral Equations do not have a unique solution. The main contribution of this paper is to prove four inequalities that constrain the degenerate scales for plane elasticity. These results are based on a new variational formulation. It is shown that the degenerate scales depend only on Poisson’s ratio. The bounds on the degenerate scales for plane elasticity in a given boundary are obtained mainly from the degenerate scales obtained from the Laplace equation for the same boundary, which are well documented

The Role of ¨Roles¨ in Use Case Diagrams

Use cases are the modeling technique of UML for formalizing the functional requirements placed on systems. This technique has limitations in modeling the context of a system, in relating systems involved in a same business process, in reusing use cases, and in specifying various constraints such as execution constraints between use case occurrences. These limitations can be overcome to some extent by the realization of multiple diagrams of various types, but with unclear relationships between them. Thus, the specification activity becomes complex and error prone. In this paper, we show how to overcome the limitations of use cases by making the roles of actors explicit. Interestingly, our contributions not only make UML a more expressive specification language, they also make it simpler to use and more consistent

A Foundation for the Concept of Role in Object Modelling

Standardization experts in object modelling are having difficulties with defining the concept of rol

Extending SMTCoq, a Certified Checker for SMT (Extended Abstract)

This extended abstract reports on current progress of SMTCoq, a communication tool between the Coq proof assistant and external SAT and SMT solvers. Based on a checker for generic first-order certificates implemented and proved correct in Coq, SMTCoq offers facilities both to check external SAT and SMT answers and to improve Coq's automation using such solvers, in a safe way. Currently supporting the SAT solver zChaff, and the SMT solver veriT for the combination of the theories of congruence closure and linear integer arithmetic, SMTCoq is meant to be extendable with a reasonable amount of effort: we present work in progress to support the SMT solver CVC4 and the theory of bit vectors.Comment: In Proceedings HaTT 2016, arXiv:1606.0542

Evaluation of the Equalising Performance of Central Government Financial Assistance to the Communes

The 36,600 French communes are far from able to offer their residents and businesses the same level of local public services for a given tax burden. Tax wealth is concentrated in a small number of communes while the costs of providing services differ considerably from one commune to the next. The purpose of the regional equalisation policy is to smooth out these disparities. It concerns an annual sum of approximately ¬20 billion in transfers. The 2003 constitutional reform, which set a target for the system to move towards greater equality, steps up the need for an evaluation of equalisation today. A preliminary overall and commune-by-commune evaluation is presented here. The overall analysis shows that the equalisation mechanisms are relatively effective and that this effectiveness increases over time. They reduced purchasing power inequalities by some 40% in 2001 as opposed to 34% in 1994.Equalisation, Fiscal Federalism, Inequalities, Public Finance