5,054 research outputs found
The Chagos Islands cases: the empire strikes back
Good governance requires the accommodation of multiple interests in the cause of decision making. However, undue regard for particular sectional interests can take their toll upon public faith in government administration. Historically, broad conceptions of the good of the commonwealth were employed to outweigh the interests of groups that resisted colonisation. In the decision making of the British Empire, the standard approach for justifying the marginalisation of the interests of colonised groups was that they were uncivilised and that particular hardships were the price to be paid for bringing to them the imperial dividend of industrial society. It is widely assumed that with the dismantling of the British Empire, such impulses and their accompanying jurisprudence became a thing of the past. Even as decolonisation proceeded apace after the Second World War, however, the United Kingdom maintained control of strategically important islands with a view towards sustaining its global role. In an infamous example from this twilight period of empire, in the 1960s imperial interests were used to justify the expulsion of the Chagos islanders from the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). Into the twenty-first century, this forced elision of the UKâs interests with the imperial âcommon goodâ continues to take centre stage in courtroom battles over the islandersâ rights, being cited before domestic and international tribunals in order to maintain the Chagossiansâ exclusion from their homeland. This article considers the new jurisprudence of imperialism which has emerged in a string of decisions which have continued to marginalise the Chagossiansâ interests
Langevin dynamics of the Lebowitz-Percus model
We revisit the hard-spheres lattice gas model in the spherical approximation
proposed by Lebowitz and Percus (J. L. Lebowitz, J. K. Percus, Phys. Rev.{\
144} (1966) 251). Although no disorder is present in the model, we find that
the short-range dynamical restrictions in the model induce glassy behavior. We
examine the off-equilibrium Langevin dynamics of this model and study the
relaxation of the density as well as the correlation, response and overlap
two-time functions. We find that the relaxation proceeds in two steps as well
as absence of anomaly in the response function. By studying the violation of
the fluctuation-dissipation ratio we conclude that the glassy scenario of this
model corresponds to the dynamics of domain growth in phase ordering kinetics.Comment: 21 pages, RevTeX, 14 PS figure
Microscopic Black Hole Pairs in Highly-Excited States
We consider the quantum mechanics of a system consisting of two identical,
Planck-size Schwarzschild black holes revolving around their common center of
mass. We find that even in a very highly-excited state such a system has very
sharp, discrete energy eigenstates, and the system performs very rapid
transitions from a one stationary state to another. For instance, when the
system is in the 100th excited state, the life times of the energy eigenstates
are of the order of s, and the energies of gravitons released in
transitions between nearby states are of the order of eV.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figures, uses RevTe
Causality violation and singularities
We show that singularities necessarily occur when a boundary of causality
violating set exists in a space-time under the physically suitable assumptions
except the global causality condition in the Hawking-Penrose singularity
theorems. Instead of the global causality condition, we impose some
restrictions on the causality violating sets to show the occurrence of
singularities.Comment: 11 pages, latex, 2 eps figure
Critical Exponents of the Three Dimensional Random Field Ising Model
The phase transition of the three--dimensional random field Ising model with
a discrete () field distribution is investigated by extensive Monte
Carlo simulations. Values of the critical exponents for the correlation length,
specific heat, susceptibility, disconnected susceptibility and magnetization
are determined simultaneously via finite size scaling. While the exponents for
the magnetization and disconnected susceptibility are consistent with a first
order transition, the specific heat appears to saturate indicating no latent
heat. Sample to sample fluctuations of the susceptibilty are consistent with
the droplet picture for the transition.Comment: Revtex, 10 pages + 4 figures included as Latex files and 1 in
Postscrip
The Advantages of the Civil Law Judicial Design as the Model for Emerging Legal Systems
Noether symmetries for two-dimensional charged particle motion
We find the Noether point symmetries for non-relativistic two-dimensional
charged particle motion. These symmetries are composed of a quasi-invariance
transformation, a time-dependent rotation and a time-dependent spatial
translation. The associated electromagnetic field satisfy a system of
first-order linear partial differential equations. This system is solved
exactly, yielding three classes of electromagnetic fields compatible with
Noether point symmetries. The corresponding Noether invariants are derived and
interpreted
Fluid Convection, Generation and Reinfusion in Haemodiafiltration
Despite widespread use in clinical practice for over 30 years, many questions remain unanswered regarding fluid convection and reinfusion strategies in haemodiafiltration (HDF). Randomised controlled trials have failed to consistently demonstrate improved survival with convective therapies, but a dose-dependent improvement in outcome has been suggested. The âminimumâ and âidealâ volumes of convection are undefined. Online generation of ultrapure dialysis fluid has allowed unprecedented convection volumes; however, delivery of fluid directly into the blood circuit requires strict monitoring. The replacement fluid may be reinfused at multiple points in the circuit. Post-dilution HDF is highly efficient in terms of solute clearance but is limited by haemoconcentration. Pre-dilution HDF prolongs filter life but requires significant convection volumes to achieve adequate solute clearance. Mid-dilution HDF utilises a specific dialyser, which is associated with additional cost and escalating transmembrane pressure. Mixed-dilution HDF appears to offer an attractive balance between solute clearance efficiency and haemoconcentration, however these findings need to be confirmed in large studies. The majority of trials comparing fluid reinfusion strategies have enrolled small numbers of patients over brief study periods. It is unclear whether high-quality evidence examining fluid convection and reinfusion will become available and practice may need to rely on observational data
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