DEFEND MY CASTLE: IS THE UK IN VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 8 OF THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS?

Since the 1990s approximately 700 000 properties have been repossessed in the UK by mortgagees. While encouraging its citizens to access mortgage finance, the UK government has failed to provide corresponding legal protection and an effective regulatory framework to curtail unscrupulous lenders. What, if any, is the UK government’s responsibility in protecting its mortgagors from losing their homes? By utilising the relatively newfound doctrine of positive obligations, this article elaborates on the extent to which the UK may be held accountable under Art 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. By rebutting the relevance of the private and contractual nature of the mortgage relationship, arguing for the ability to enforce socio-economic rights and upgrading the concept of home in legal discourse, this article contends that the UK is in breach of Art 8 of the ECHR. This contention is a crucial step towards reformulating states’ role and responsibility under the ECHR and, if elaborated on by the judiciary, will potentially prompt political action to reform the law of mortgages in the UK

The Road that Made Mountains: Highway Design and the Production of Landscape in Vail, Colorado

Constructed between 1972 and 1978, Vail Pass is a 16-mile section of Interstate-70 that crosses the continental divide in the Central Mountains of Colorado. It connects the ski resort communities of Copper Mountain and Vail and has played a significant role in the development of tourism in the Colorado High Country. The design and planning of Vail Pass occurred at a time of increased public concern over environmental issues, and was built following a series of significant pieces of federal environmental legislation. Within this context, highway designers and engineers sought to harmoniously integrate the highway into its natural setting. This thesis tells the story of Vail Pass through the perspectives of environmental legislation and politics, roadway design, and human-nature relations in Colorado. A personal bicycle journey over Vail Pass serves to introduce the central questions of this project. Chapter one discusses scholarly work within environmental history and landscape studies in order to contextualize this project within broader academic debates. Chapter two addresses the environmental politics and legislation that arose around the Vail Pass project and considers the impact of federal legislation on a single landscape. In Chapters three and four, Vail Pass is placed within broader histories of road and landscape design, providing a deeper understanding of the meaning and significance of the Vail Pass landscape. In the concluding chapter, Vail Pass is used to discuss broader questions of infrastructure, tourism, and the environment in Colorado as climate change alters the landscape

Water-ice driven activity on Main-Belt Comet P/2010 A2 (LINEAR) ?

The dust ejecta of Main-Belt Comet P/2010 A2 (LINEAR) have been observed with several telescopes at the at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos on La Palma, Spain. Application of an inverse dust tail Monte Carlo method to the images of the dust ejecta from the object indicates that a sustained, likely water-ice driven, activity over some eight months is the mechanism responsible for the formation of the observed tail. The total amount of dust released is estimated to be 5E7 kg, which represents about 0.3% of the nucleus mass. While the event could have been triggered by a collision, this cannot be decided from the currently available data.Comment: Accepted for ApJ Letter

The super-oscillating superlens

We demonstrate a lens that creates a sub-wavelength focal spot beyond the near-field by exploiting the phenomenon of super-oscillation

Experimental Identification of the Kink Instability as a Poloidal Flux Amplification Mechanism for Coaxial Gun Spheromak Formation

The magnetohydrodynamic kink instability is observed and identified experimentally as a poloidal flux amplification mechanism for coaxial gun spheromak formation. Plasmas in this experiment fall into three distinct regimes which depend on the peak gun current to magnetic flux ratio, with (I) low values resulting in a straight plasma column with helical magnetic field, (II) intermediate values leading to kinking of the column axis, and (III) high values leading immediately to a detached plasma. Onset of column kinking agrees quantitatively with the Kruskal-Shafranov limit, and the kink acts as a dynamo which converts toroidal to poloidal flux. Regime II clearly leads to both poloidal flux amplification and the development of a spheromak configuration.Comment: accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Exploring the limits of super oscillatory imaging

An investigation of the resolution limits of super-oscillatory imaging shows that, for objects of limited size, resolution of lambda/14 can be obtained in the far-field without the use of evanescent waves or fluorescence

Notes

Notes by John E. Lindberg, Lawrence S. May, Clifford A. Goodrich, William T. Huston, Louis Albert Hafner, Robert A. Stewart, Benedict R. Danko, and James D. Matthews