Matters of Preference: Tracing the Line between Citizens, Democratic States, and International Law

In this Article, we assess the role the aggregation of citizen preferences into the foreign policy choices of a democratic country might play in the legitimization of international law. After addressing some of the theoretical and empirical issues associated with such an approach, we use an anticipated reaction model developed by Michael Bailey to show that even in large democracies there are mechanisms through which citizen preferences can be and are reflected in the policy choices of their representatives. Incumbents and candidates for office take policy positions in hopes of maximizing their future election chances. Although policymakers each have their own personal policy preferences, those preferences must be balanced against those of the electorate to optimize the prospects for future election. Rational well-informed policymakers anticipate future electoral consequences of public opinion and adjust their present policy positions accordingly. We then discuss the implications of such an approach for the principle of subsidiarity and the participation of states in multilateral institutions, in particular the International Monetary Fund. We argue that there is reason to believe that citizen preferences remain relevant in decisions whether to centralize or decentralize, and in decisions whether a state will support or undermine the mission of international institutions, which must be taken into account as those institutions make their own substantive and procedural choices

Biological denitrification using coconut shells in a fluidised bed reactor

Biological denitrification is the process of utilising bacteria to denitrify nitrate in the absence of oxygen. The denitrifying bacteria anaerobically respire the nitrate to gaseous nitrogen products. Most experience with biological denitrification is in the field of drinking water treatment, predominantly in Europe. As most potable water sources are low in organic carbon, a supplementary carbon feed source is required. Methanol, ethanol and acetic acid has been demonstrated to be effective in biological granular media filters and fluidised bed reactors (Bosman and Hendricks, 1981) This research builds upon these concepts and investigates the application of coconut shell fragments within a fluidised bed to sustain biological denitrification where the coconut shell fragments not only provide the only source of organic carbon for the biological process, but provide the media on which the bacteria will attach within a fluidised bed. Three sets of parallel laboratory scale investigations were undertaken. The first considered several combinations of the physical and chemical pretreatments on the coconut shell fragments (substrate) to increase the medium to long term sustainable release of organic carbon. The second set, takes the pretreated substrate and assesses the rate of biological denitrification the substrate will support. This study was conducted in 6L biological denitrification batch reactors. In the first two set of laboratory investigations, a total of thirty six unique combinations of four physical and fifteen chemical pretreatments were evaluated. The pretreatment of the substrate with sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and lime showed the most promise. The NaOH pretreated (pH=14) substrate was able to denitrify at an average rate of 1.3 mg/L/day (3.1 mg/L/day peak), whilst the lime pretreated substrate (Ca(OH)₂ pretreatment dosage of 500mg/L) was observed to remove nitrate at an average rate of 0.83 mg/L/day. During the pretreatment batch trials, it was observed that hydroxide pretreatments (NaOH and lime) would become more acidic with time. This was most likely as the result of the formation of alkali cellulose, in which the hydroxyl hydrogen from cellulose (with the substrate) is substitutes with either a sodium ion in the case of NaOH pretreatment or with a CaOH⁺ ion in the case of Lime pretreatment. Whilst NaOH pretreatment provided the greatest improvement in denitrification capacity, the preferred substrate pretreatment was to chemically pretreat the coconut fragments with 500 mg/L of Lime (Ca(OH)₂) solution. Sodium hydroxide was discounted due to issues associated with the full scale application of this technique, in that sodium hydroxide is expensive, extremely caustic and requires specific handling and storage facilities. The third set of laboratory trails involved a parallel study of two laboratory scale (2.2m high, volume 11.26L) fluidised bed reactors. One reactor contained lime pretreated coconut fragments, while the other baseline reactor utilised similar crushed but untreated coconut fragments during the denitrification trials. In total six series of trials were undertaken, with each series comprising several unique flow/loading conditions (thirty eight unique trials were evaluated). The fluidised bed reactor trials demonstrated that under ideal conditions a COD:TNOx ratio of 4:1 is required for denitrification. Whilst the lime pretreatment technique and utilisation of a fluidised bed provided improved denitrification rates, the ability of the coconut substrate to release organic carbon still continued to restrict the biological processes. The pretreatment of the substrate with lime increased the rate of denitrification from 7.1 mg/L/day (for the untreated substrate) to 11.6 mg/L/day for the lime treated substrate. A numerical evaluation of the biological processes developed in this study (Eqn. 1-1) estimates that the denitrification rate parameter (rb) of the lime pretreated substrate fluidised bed was approximately 198% greater than the untreated substrate. [complicated formula here

Experienced demand does not affect subsequent sleep and the cortisol awakening response

Purpose: Stress is associated with subjective and objective sleep disturbances; however, it is not known whether stress disrupts sleep and relevant physiological markers of stress immediately after it is experienced. The present study examined whether demand, in the form of cognitive tasks, disrupted sleep and the cortisol awakening response (CAR), depending on whether it was experienced or just anticipated. Participants and Methods: Subjective and objective sleep was measured in 22 healthy adults on three nights (Nights 0– 2) in a sleep laboratory using sleep diaries and polysomnography. Saliva samples were obtained at awakening, +15, +30, +45 and +60 minutes on each subsequent day (Day 1– 3) and CAR measurement indices were derived: awakening cortisol levels, the mean increase in cortisol levels (MnInc) and total cortisol secretion (AUCG). On Night 1, participants were informed that they were required to complete a series of demanding cognitive tasks within the sleep laboratory during the following day. Participants completed the tasks as expected or unexpectedly performed sedentary activities. Results: Compared to the no-demand group, the demand group displayed significantly higher levels of state anxiety immediately completing the first task. There were no subsequent differences between the demand and no-demand groups in Night 2 subjective sleep continuity, objective sleep continuity or architecture, or on any Day 3 CAR measure. Conclusion: These results indicate that sleep and the CAR are not differentially affected depending on whether or not an anticipated stressor is then experienced. This provides further evidence to indicate that the CAR is a marker of anticipation and not recovery. In order to disrupt sleep, a stressor may need to be personally relevant or of a prolonged duration or intensity

Discontinuation of standard first-line antiretroviral therapy in a cohort of 1434 Malawian children

The standard first-line antiretroviral (ART) regimen in Malawi for both adults and children is a fixed-dose combination tablet containing stavudine (d4T), lamivudine (3TC) and nevirapine (NVP). This regimen has been shown to yield satisfactory virologic and immunologic outcomes in children. Published studies have described insights into discontinuation of first-line regimen and toxicities of ART in adults, but similar studies in paediatric populations are lacking

Type IIn Supernova Detections in z ~ 2 Lyman Break Galaxies: Probing the IMF Directly

Type IIn supernovae (SNe IIn) exhibit luminous ultraviolet continua during outburst and luminous, long-lived narrow ultraviolet and optical emission lines attributed to circumstellar interaction. These properties have enabled successful detections at z ~ 2 in archival imaging and continued investigations from late-time spectroscopy. Because SNe IIn are believed to have massive (≳50M_☉) progenitors, searches in the well-studied Lyman break galaxy (LBG) host population offer the prospect of testing the form of the high-redshift stellar initial mass function (IMF) in a high density star formation environment directly. I briefly discuss our z ~ 2 photometric detection method targeting LBGs in the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS) and present data from the first 6 confirmed z ~ 2 SNe IIn pulled from 30 photometric SN candidates. A comparison of the color and magnitude distributions of the SN host galaxies to that of the full LBG sample finds that z ~ 2 SNe preferentially occur in bluer, fainter galaxies. I conclude with a discussion of an approach that uses the CFHTLS pilot sample to provide a first estimate of the form of the high-redshift IMF. Upcoming deep synoptic imaging surveys will greatly improve z ~ 2 SNe IIn statistics from ~10^5 expected detections and future large aperture space- and ground-based telescopes will have the sensitivities to extend this work to z ≳ 6

An Infinite Dimensional Symmetry Algebra in String Theory

Symmetry transformations of the space-time fields of string theory are generated by certain similarity transformations of the stress-tensor of the associated conformal field theories. This observation is complicated by the fact that, as we explain, many of the operators we habitually use in string theory (such as vertices and currents) have ill-defined commutators. However, we identify an infinite-dimensional subalgebra whose commutators are not singular, and explicitly calculate its structure constants. This constitutes a subalgebra of the gauge symmetry of string theory, although it may act on auxiliary as well as propagating fields. We term this object a {\it weighted tensor algebra}, and, while it appears to be a distant cousin of the $W$-algebras, it has not, to our knowledge, appeared in the literature before.Comment: 14 pages, Plain TeX, report RU93-8, CTP-TAMU-2/94, CERN-TH.7022/9

Suppression of Heavy Ion gamma gamma Production of the Higgs by Coulomb Dissociation

Predicted two-photon Higgs production with heavy ions at LHC is shown to be reduced due to the large Coulomb dissociation cross section. Incorporating the effect of dissociation reduces the production of a 100 GeV Higgs by about a factor of three compared to rates in the literature calculated without this effect.Comment: 5 pages, latex, revtex source, two postscript figure

The tragedy of the common? A comparative population genomic study of two bumblebee species

Within the theoretical framework of the small population paradigm, we investigated the population genomics and parasite load of two bumblebee species across the UK and Ireland. Bombus pratorum is widespread and common throughout its range while Bombus monticola is restricted to higher altitudes and shows a more fragmented distribution. Bombus monticola showed stronger population structuring, isolation-by-distance, and a deficit of heterozygotes in the most isolated population in the south of its range (Dartmoor). Heterozygosity and inbreeding coefficients (FIS) were comparable between both species, but the proportion of polymorphic sites was much greater in B. pratorum. Notably, both species have suffered significant declines in Ne over the last 100 generations and estimates and declines for both species were of similar orders of magnitude. No pattern of increased parasite prevalence in populations of lower heterozygosity was observed. Instead, ecological and demographic factors (age, latitude, date, habitat suitability) were the main drivers of parasite prevalence. Distinct patterns of selection were observed in both species in regions involved in regulation of transcription and neurotransmission and in particular pathways targeted by neonicotinoid insecticides. Our results highlight the pressing need for monitoring to include common as well as rare species. This should not focus solely on census population counts, but include estimates of Ne. We also highlight the need for further work to establish adaptive shifts in globally important pollinator communities

Pade Approximants, Optimal Renormalization Scales, and Momentum Flow in Feynman Diagrams

We show that the Pade Approximant (PA) approach for resummation of perturbative series in QCD provides a systematic method for approximating the flow of momentum in Feynman diagrams. In the large-$\beta_0$ limit, diagonal PA's generalize the Brodsky-Lepage-Mackenzie (BLM) scale-setting method to higher orders in a renormalization scale- and scheme-invariant manner, using multiple scales that represent Neubert's concept of the distribution of momentum flow through a virtual gluon. If the distribution is non-negative, the PA's have only real roots, and approximate the distribution function by a sum of delta-functions, whose locations and weights are identical to the optimal choice provided by the Gaussian quadrature method for numerical integration. We show how the first few coefficients in a perturbative series can set rigorous bounds on the all-order momentum distribution function, if it is positive. We illustrate the method with the vacuum polarization function and the Bjorken sum rule computed in the large-$\beta_0$ limit.Comment: 28 pages, LaTeX, including 6 figures requires epsfig.st

Koinonia

Student Leadership Development: A Christian College Research Project and Discussion of Issues President\u27s Corner Editor\u27s Disk ACSD Executive Committee Ballot CoCCA: Leadership Development Made Less Intimidating & Hot Ideas New Professionals Retreat Book Review: Assessment in Student Affairshttps://pillars.taylor.edu/acsd_koinonia/1026/thumbnail.jp