Police powers and Article 5 ECHR: time for a new approach to the interpretation of the right to liberty

This is the final version. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.This paper discusses the approach of British and European Courts to the interpretation and application of the Article 5 ECHR right to liberty when faced with police powers. The paper argues that the long-standing approach of the European Court of Human Rights in Guzzardi v Italy [1980] ECHR 7367/76 is wrong and should be replaced with a new interpretation based on coercion. The paper goes on to argue that a new approach would allow the courts to efectively protect both Convention rights and the rule of law

Mathematizing Darwin

Ernst Mayr called the first part of the evolutionary synthesis the ‘Fisherian synthesis’ on account of the dominant role played by R.A. Fisher in forging a mathematical theory of natural selection together with J.B.S. Haldane and Sewall Wright in the decade 1922–1932. It is here argued that Fisher’s contribution relied on a close reading of Darwin’s work to a much greater extent than did the contributions of Haldane and Wright, that it was synthetic in contrast to their analytic approach and that it was greatly influenced by his friendship with the Darwin family, particularly with Charles’s son Leonard

Justice for the blackest malefactors? Determinate prison sentences, early release, and the ECHR

This is the final version. Available from Cambridge University Press via the DOI in this record. In the light of the High Court's decision in R (Khan) v Secretary of State for Justice [2020] 1 WLR 3932 this paper contends that a revised approach to the interpretation of Articles 5 and 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights is needed. The paper argues that the Article 5 ECHR right to liberty and security plays a developing, though overlooked, role in the context of regulating determinate prison sentences. English law's conclusion that Article 5 of the ECHR has little to offer in this context is wrong and needs to be reconsidered. Equally, a more generous interpretation of Article 7 of the ECHR is now required: an approach which reflects the reality of determinate sentences

Stable Speckle Patterns for Nano-scale Strain Mapping up to 700 °C

The digital image correlation (DIC) of speckle patterns obtained by vapour-assisted gold remodelling at 200 – 350 °C has already been used to map plastic strains with submicron resolution. However, it has not so far proved possible to use such patterns for testing at high temperatures. Here we demonstrate how a gold speckle pattern can be made that is stable at 700 °C, to study deformation in a commercial TiAl alloy (Ti-45Al-2Nb- 2Mn(at%)-0.8 vol% TiB$_2$). The pattern is made up of a uniformly sized random array of Au islands as small as 15 nm in diameter, depending on reconstruction parameters, with a sufficiently small spacing to be suitable for nano-scale, nDIC, strain mapping at a subset size of 60 × 60 nm$^2$ . It can be used at temperatures up to 700 °C for many hours, for high cycle fatigue testing for instance. There is good particle attachment to the substrate. It can withstand ultra-sound cleaning, is thermally stable and has a high atomic number contrast for topography-free backscatter electron imaging.EPSRC / Rolls-Royce Strategic Partnership (EP/M005607/1

Salt enhanced solvent relaxation and particle surface area determination via rapid spin-lattice NMR

This paper demonstrates the influence of surface charge chemistry on the application of nuclear magnetic relaxation measurements (NMR relaxometry) for the in situ determination of particle surface area, in the presence of high electrolyte concentration. Specifically, dispersions of titania, calcite and silica with and without 1 M KCl were investigated. The addition of salt, showed no significant change to relaxation measurements for titanium dioxide; however, a significant rate enhancement was observed for both calcite and silica systems. These differences were attributed to counterion layers forming as a result of the particles surface charge, leading to an increase in the relaxation rate of bound surface layer water. Further, changes appeared to be more pronounced in the silica systems, due to their larger charge. No enhancement was observed for titania, which was assumed to be due to the particles being at their isoelectric point, with no resulting counterion layer formation. Solvent relaxation was further used to successfully determine the surface area of particles in a dispersion using a silica standard reference material, with results compared to Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) and spherical equivalent estimations. Two different dispersions of titanium dioxide, of different crystal phases, were shown to have NMR surface area measurements in good agreement with BET. Thus showing the technique was able to measure changes in surface charge when surface chemistry remained relatively similar, due to the reference silica material also being an oxide. In contrast, the NMR technique appeared to overestimate the calcite surface areas in reference to BET, which was assumed to occur due to both better dispersion in the liquid state of nanocrystallites and potential ion enhancement from the solubility of the calcite. These results highlight the potential of this technique as a fast, non-destructive and non-invasive method for dispersion analysis, but also show the competition between surface area and surface chemistry interactions on measured relaxation rates

Longitudinal Research on Alcohol Problems: The Flow of Risk, Problems, and Disorder over Time

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65764/1/j.1530-0277.1996.tb01753.x.pd

Evolution of leaf-form in land plants linked to atmospheric CO2 decline in the Late Palaeozoic era

The widespread appearance of megaphyll leaves, with their branched veins and planate form, did not occur until the close of the Devonian period at about 360 Myr ago. This happened about 40 Myr after simple leafless vascular plants first colonized the land in the Late Silurian/Early Devonian, but the reason for the slow emergence of this common feature of present-day plants is presently unresolved. Here we show, in a series of quantitative analyses using fossil leaf characters and biophysical principles, that the delay was causally linked with a 90% drop in atmospheric pCO2 during the Late Palaeozoic era. In contrast to simulations for a typical Early Devonian land plant, possessing few stomata on leafless stems, those for a planate leaf with the same stomatal characteristics indicate that it would have suffered lethal overheating, because of greater interception of solar energy and low transpiration. When planate leaves first appeared in the Late Devonian and subsequently diversified in the Carboniferous period, they possessed substantially higher stomatal densities. This observation is consistent with the effects of the pCO2 on stomatal development and suggests that the evolution of planate leaves could only have occurred after an increase in stomatal density, allowing higher transpiration rates that were sufficient to maintain cool and viable leaf temperatures