The European Union budget

This paper analyses the current budgetary system of the EU, its features and the differences in it from the budgets of nation states, particularly from the standpoint of budgetary revenue and expenditure. Below there is an analysis of the system of the redistribution of EU budgetary resources via the Structural Funds, leading to different net positions of the member states in the use of budgetary resources. The object of the system is to achieve the maximum economic and social cohesion within the EU. The article points out that processes of EU enlargement and the creation of a new “financial perspective” will lead to many problems in the fulfilment of these objectives.budget, European Union, net transfers, enlargement of the EU

Black Holes, Equilibrium, and Cosmology

We trace the origins and development of black hole thermodynamics across the past half-century, emphasizing the framework's relation to classical thermodynamics, and the vital role played by the notions of equilibrium, stationarity, and symmetry. We discuss different interpretations of the first law of black hole mechanics, and assess the validity of its mechanical, process-based interpretation for evaporating black holes. We bring these ideas to the cosmological realm, and highlight the various difficulties that arise when formulating thermodynamics for black holes in asymptotically de Sitter backgrounds. We discuss a number of proposed solutions and the open questions that arise therein.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure. Honorable Mention for the Gravity Research Foundation 2023 Awards for Essays on Gravitatio

Functional Ecology And Ecosystem Services of Urban Trees

Compared to their natural counterparts, trees in urban ecosystems experience distinctive environmental conditions which can be both beneficial and harmful to tree functions and fitness. Thus, the morphological, phenological, and physiological functions of trees in urban ecosystems can be unique and might not be predictable from patterns identified in natural forests where most research on tree ecology has occurred. To better understand how different tree species contribute to ecosystem services in urban environments, we estimated a number of key performance metrics and functional traits for species commonly planted in urban areas. Between April of 2017 and December of 2019, we monitored 42 species of trees across two sites growing in open, urban settings. Radial growth of each individual was measured weekly from April to December using dendrometer bands. Leaf phenology was assessed weekly during leaf development and senescence. Wood phenology was estimated using the RDendrom package in R. Annual C sequestration was estimated using radial growth data, allometric equations (Urban Tree Database), and species-specific wood density and stem C% estimates (TRY database). We also measured several important anatomical, morphological, physiological, and phenological traits. In 2019, we measured a number of canopy characteristics on a smaller subset of individuals (n=137) across 38 species. Lastly, we measured a number of potentially important abiotic covariates, including soil texture, soil pH, canopy light availability, and various topographic variables. v We found evidence that performance metrics (basal area growth), canopy characteristics, and functional traits varied significantly among the species in our study. Moreover, the performance metrics and traits which are directly linked to specific ecosystem services, such as aboveground carbon sequestration and drip line leaf area index, also varied significantly among the species in our study. This suggests that particular species can be selected in order to maximize those ecosystem services which are in high demand in a given urban environment. Lastly, we found that all performance metrics were strongly related to specific groups of functional traits, suggesting that species can also be selected to provide ecosystem services based upon their individual trait phenotypes

Multiple Reentrant Phase Transitions and Triple Points in Lovelock Thermodynamics

We investigate the effects of higher curvature corrections from Lovelock gravity on the phase structure of asymptotically AdS black holes, treating the cosmological constant as a thermodynamic pressure. We examine how various thermodynamic phenomena, such as Van der Waals behaviour, reentrant phase transitions (RPT), and tricritical points are manifest for U(1) charged black holes in Gauss-Bonnet and 3rd-order Lovelock gravities. We furthermore observe a new phenomenon of "multiple RPT" behaviour, in which for fixed pressure the small/large/small/large black hole phase transition occurs as the temperature of the system increases. We also find that when the higher-order Lovelock couplings are related in a particular way, a peculiar isolated critical point emerges for hyperbolic black holes and is characterized by non-standard critical exponents.Comment: 50 pages, 28 Figures v2: minor corrections, references adde

Some problems in determination of bull's breeding values

International audienc

Euclidean and Hamiltonian Thermodynamics for Regular Black Holes

We investigate the thermodynamic properties of the Hayward regular black hole using both Euclidean path integral and Hamiltonian methods, in asymptotically anti-de Sitter, Minkowski, and de Sitter spacetimes. With the inclusion of matter fields which act as a source for the regular black hole geometry, an effective temperature emerges that differs from the conventional definition related to the Killing surface gravity. We posit that this temperature is the appropriate choice for studying thermodynamic phenomena, by demonstrating consistency between the Euclidean and Hamiltonian formulations in the appropriate limits. We examine the thermodynamic properties and phase structure of the Hayward black hole in the canonical ensemble and show that, counter to some earlier indications, standard mean-field theory critical behaviour is observed when the cosmological constant is treated as a thermodynamic pressure. We note the absence of a Hawking-Page transition, and conjecture that quantum gravity corrections which are suitably strong to regulate the Schwarzschild singularity generically prevent the transition from occurring. We also show that the Smarr relation remains linear in all cases, despite the absence of a linearity proof for non-linear electrodynamic theories with non-symmetry inheriting fields.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures