Liberalism, Human Rights, and Human Dignity

Do international standards regarding human rights require the existence of a liberal regime? This was the thrust of Rhoda Howard and Jack Donnelly’s essay in the September 1986 issue of this Review. Neil Mitchell takes vigorous issue with this contention, arguing first and foremost that Howard and Donnelly have not defined liberalism satisfactorily. Howard and Donnelly present a spirited rejoinder

Comment on: "The spatial extent of the Deep Western Boundary Current into the Bounty Trough: new evidence from parasound sub-bottom profiling" by Horn and Uenzelmann-Neben

Horn and Uenzelmann-Neben (2016) have described computing power spectra from sediment profiler data collected over the Bounty Trough from which they inferred Milankovic cycles. Sediment profiler records are routinely acquired on research vessels, so the method presented is interesting if it can help to resolve different influences on sediment deposits from such data. A significant concern, however, is that attenuation dominates the amplitude variation in profiler data, distorting power spectra computed over the sediment age intervals of interest. In the case of the Bounty Trough data shown, attenuation appears to have strongly varied amplitudes over the depth range commensurate with the first 41 ky Milankovic cycle, so the article’s result is less certain than claimed. Attenuation rates can vary spatially (both along track and with depth) so evaluating cycles will not be straightforward without ground truth from boreholes, which potentially diminishes the utility of remote-sensing data. Nevertheless, while not separating attenuation and reflectivity unequivocally, alternative displays of such data as explained below can help to suggest the relative importance of attenuation and reflectivity on amplitude variations

Subsea salt flows in the Atlantis II Deep and Tethis Deep, Red Sea

In the area of today’s Red Sea, evaporites were widely deposited during the Miocene. Due to the ongoing rifting and seafloor spreading, the evaporites have lost their lateral constraint and started to move downslope. High sediment temperatures near the Red Sea graben and the weak rheology of halite may also favour evaporite movement. However, the deformation mechanism as well as the velocity of these flows is largely unknown. New high-resolution multibeam and seismic data were recorded in March 2011 (P408-2 cruise) within the framework of the project “The Jeddah Transect”, a cooperation between King Abdulaziz University, Saudi-Arabia and GEOMAR, Germany. The data give new insights into evaporite flows in the area of the Atlantis II Deep. This ~400 m deep seafloor depression is located at about 21°N in the central Red Sea graben and is partly filled with hot saline brine (T~68°C, S~270h. The brine-seawater interface at about 2050 mbsl coincides with the depth of a subseafloor salt layer in the seismic reflection data. The rough seafloor morphology of the Atlantis II Deep area is dominated by a sequence of normal faults showing vertical offsets of several hundred meters. However, SW-NE directed lineaments parallel to the seafloor gradient in the south east and possibly north-west of the deep, with typical heights between 20 and 40 m, widths between 300 and 1000 m and lengths exceeding 10 km in places, are interpreted as surface indications of subsurface evaporite flow. The fronts of some of these flows are well rounded, and their occurrence is limited to areas of low seafloor gradients. Generally, the appearance of evaporite flows in the Atlantis II Deep is comparable to salt flows in the Thetis Deep at ~23°N (Mitchell et al., 2010). Furthermore, deformed hemipelagic layers deposited on top of the Miocene evaporites indicate salt movement 60 km off the central rift axis. A second research cruise is planned in March 2012 (RV Pelagia) to obtain more high-resolution seismic data on the morphological structures related to the evaporite flows at 21°N. Additionally, repeated multibeam measurements in the Thetis Deep will constrain the maximum movement rate of the evaporites. Mitchell, N. C. ; Ligi, M. ; Ferrante, V. ; Bonatti, E. ; Rutter, E.: Submarine salt flows in the central Red Sea. In: Geological Society of America Bulletin vol. 122 (2010), Nr. 5-6, pp. 701–71

Electromagnetic and mechanical AC loss of an ITER TF model coil conductor (DP4) under transverse cyclic loading

Energising a coil results in a transverse force on the strands pushing the cable towards one side of the jacket. This load causes a transverse compressive strain in strands and in particular in strand crossover points. Besides this, contact surfaces interfere by micro-sliding resulting in friction and anomalous contact resistance behaviour versus force. Two Central Solenoid Model Coil conductors have been tested previously in a cryogenic press and now the experimental results are presented for the Toroidal Field Model Coil (TFMC) conductor (DP4). The press can transmit a variable (cyclic) force of at least 650 kN/m directly to a cable section of 400 mm at 4.2 K. The magnetisation of the conductor and the interstrand resistance (Rc) between various strands inside the cable can be measured by varying pressure. The force on the cable and the displacement are monitored simultaneously in order to determine the effective cable Young's modulus and the mechanical heat generation due to friction and deformation. The mechanical heat generation, the coupling loss time constant n¿ and the Rc of the full-size ITER TFMC conductor have been studied under load up to 40 full loading cycles. The evolution of Rc is comparable to the behaviour found for the CS Model Coil type of conductors. A significant decrease of the cable coupling current time constant, n¿ and mechanical heat generation after cyclic loading is foun

Epidemiological geomatics in evaluation of mine risk education in Afghanistan: introducing population weighted raster maps

Evaluation of mine risk education in Afghanistan used population weighted raster maps as an evaluation tool to assess mine education performance, coverage and costs. A stratified last-stage random cluster sample produced representative data on mine risk and exposure to education. Clusters were weighted by the population they represented, rather than the land area. A "friction surface" hooked the population weight into interpolation of cluster-specific indicators. The resulting population weighted raster contours offer a model of the population effects of landmine risks and risk education. Five indicator levels ordered the evidence from simple description of the population-weighted indicators (level 0), through risk analysis (levels 1–3) to modelling programme investment and local variations (level 4). Using graphic overlay techniques, it was possible to metamorphose the map, portraying the prediction of what might happen over time, based on the causality models developed in the epidemiological analysis. Based on a lattice of local site-specific predictions, each cluster being a small universe, the "average" prediction was immediately interpretable without losing the spatial complexity