Tension Between the Cartagena Protocol and the WTO: The Significance of Recent WTO Developments in an Ongoing Debate

Disputes recently decided and pending before the WTO will significantly affect prior analyses of the conflict between treaties. A recent WTO Appellate Body decision against Japan concerning import restrictions on apples ( Apples ) sheds light on how the SPS Agreement interacts with trade restrictions based on environmental concerns. Also, a pending panel dispute addressing trade restrictions on LMOs ( Biotech Products ) will provide significant guidance as to how the WTO will resolve the conflict between the two treaties. This Development does not examine all potential conflicts between the treaties, but instead focuses on what these two WTO disputes mean for those conflicts. Part I of this Development provides background on the Protocol, the SPS Agreement, and their potential for conflict. Part II analyzes the Apples decision and its significance for the conflict between the two treaties. Part III examines the pending dispute before the WTO concerning a European Community ( EC ) trade moratorium on LMOs and the implications of the dispute for the Cartagena Protocol. Finally, Part IV considers the significance of these disputes in understanding the relationship between the two treaties

A holistic approach to remote condition monitoring for the accurate evaluation of railway infrastructure and rolling stock

The rail industry needs to address a number of important operational challenges in the foreseeable future. First of all, the safety of rail transport needs to be maintained at an absolute maximum matching the achievements of the European airline industry of zero fatalities. Secondly, promote sustainable growth to support increasing demand for both passenger and freight rail transport. Thirdly, support the implementation of measurable innovations and improvements that help increase capacity of current infrastructure through enhanced availability. Finally, maximise the environmentally benign character of railway transport through exploitation of novel technologies such as hydrogen trains and advanced electrification employing renewable energy sources. This project, primarily focused on the UK Rail infrastructure, investigated the benefits arising from a holistic approach in the application of Remote Condition Monitoring (RCM) as a critical means for the accurate, efficient, reliable and cost-effective evaluation of key railway infrastructure assets and rolling stock. This work involved the use of several techniques and innovative methodologies based primarily on Acoustic Emission (AE) and vibration analysis in order to address the evaluation requirements for different components of interest. The results obtained have been very promising and present rail infrastructure managers and rolling stock operators with new opportunities for improved and more reliable operations. This work has led to the instrumentation of multiple sites across the UK rail network enabling measurements to be carried out on various assets under actual operational conditions. At Cropredy an integrated high-frequency vibro-acoustic RCM system has successfully been installed on the Chiltern railway line on the way from London to Birmingham. This customised system has been fully operational since 2015 measuring more than 200 passenger and freight trains every day moving at speeds up to 100 miles per hour (MPH). Prior to the installation of the system at Cropredy a Certificate (PA05/06524) of Acceptance was issued by Network Rail which after being renewed recently is now valid until September 2021. The system is due for an upgrade in the following stage of development, employing wireless sensors and advanced energy harvesting devices which are being developed under a collaborative Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) project between Exeter and Birmingham Universities, Network Rail, Swiss Approval UK and Quatrro. The widespread implementation of the techniques and methodologies researched will give rise to significant potential impact with respect to the effectiveness of maintenance strategies, particularly in terms of cost efficiency, improved availability of railway assets and better planning of available resources. As modern rail transport moves towards 24-hour railway, the inspection, maintenance and track renewal and upgrade regime will need to be re-thought at a fundamental level. Effective RCM will be a key factor in realistically enabling true round the clock operations. The results presented in this thesis have been part of a six-year research effort with a clear focus on addressing the true industrial need. The findings of this work have led to a re-think within Network Rail regarding the new possibilities arising from the effective use of RCM in designing and implementing more efficient and cost-effective railway operations whilst helping reduce the cost. The use of autonomous sensing systems in the future will change the inspection and maintenance strategies currently used shifting towards a truly prognostic operational strategy

Supernova 2014J at M82 – II. Direct analysis of a middle-class Type Ia supernova

We analyze a time series of optical spectra of SN 2014J from almost two weeks prior to maximum to nearly four months after maximum. We perform our analysis using the SYNOW code, which is well suited to track the distribution of the ions with velocity in the ejecta. We show that almost all of the spectral features during the entire epoch can be identified with permitted transitions of the common ions found in normal SNe Ia in agreement with previous studies. We show that 2014J is a relatively normal SN Ia. At early times the spectral features are dominated by Si II, S II, Mg II, and Ca II. These ions persist to maximum light with the appearance of Na I and Mg I. At later times iron-group elements also appear, as expected in the stratified abundance model of the formation of normal type Ia SNe. We do not find significant spectroscopic evidence for oxygen, until 100 days after maximum light. The +100 day identification of oxygen is tentative, and would imply significant mixing of unburned or only slight processed elements down to a velocity of 6,000 km~s−1. Our results are in relatively good agreement with other analyses in the IR. We briefly compare SN 2011fe to SN 2014J and conclude that the differences could be due to different central densities at ignition or differences in the C/O ratio of the progenitors

Revealing AGNs Through TESS Variability

We used Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) data to identify 29 candidate active galactic nuclei (AGNs) through their optical variability. The high-cadence, high-precision TESS light curves present a unique opportunity for the identification of AGNs, including those not selected through other methods. Of the candidates, we found that 18 have either previously been identified as AGNs in the literature or could have been selected based on emission-line diagnostics, mid-IR colors, or X-ray luminosity. AGNs in low-mass galaxies offer a window into supermassive black hole (SMBH) and galaxy co-evolution and 8 of the 29 candidates have estimated black hole masses $\mathrm{\lesssim 10^{6} M_{\odot}}$. The low-mass galaxies NGC 4395 and NGC 4449 are two of our five "high-confidence" candidates. By applying our methodology to the entire TESS main and extended mission datasets, we expect to identify $\sim$45 more AGN candidates, of which $\sim$26 will be new and $\sim$8 will be in low-mass galaxies.Comment: 21 pages, 17 figures, 6 tables. Will be submitted to AAS journals. Comments welcom

Discovery and Early Evolution of ASASSN-19bt, the First TDE Detected by TESS

We present the discovery and early evolution of ASASSN-19bt, a tidal disruption event (TDE) discovered by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) at a distance of $d\simeq115$ Mpc and the first TDE to be detected by TESS. As the TDE is located in the TESS Continuous Viewing Zone, our dataset includes 30-minute cadence observations starting on 2018 July 25, and we precisely measure that the TDE begins to brighten $\sim8.3$ days before its discovery. Our dataset also includes 18 epochs of Swift UVOT and XRT observations, 2 epochs of XMM-Newton observations, 13 spectroscopic observations, and ground data from the Las Cumbres Observatory telescope network, spanning from 32 days before peak through 37 days after peak. ASASSN-19bt thus has the most detailed pre-peak dataset for any TDE. The TESS light curve indicates that the transient began to brighten on 2019 January 21.6 and that for the first 15 days its rise was consistent with a flux $\propto t^2$ power-law model. The optical/UV emission is well-fit by a blackbody SED, and ASASSN-19bt exhibits an early spike in its luminosity and temperature roughly 32 rest-frame days before peak and spanning up to 14 days that has not been seen in other TDEs, possibly because UV observations were not triggered early enough to detect it. It peaked on 2019 March 04.9 at a luminosity of $L\simeq1.3\times10^{44}$ ergs s$^{-1}$ and radiated $E\simeq3.2\times10^{50}$ ergs during the 41-day rise to peak. X-ray observations after peak indicate a softening of the hard X-ray emission prior to peak, reminiscent of the hard/soft states in X-ray binaries.Comment: 23 pages, 14 figures, 5 tables. A machine-readable table containing the host-subtracted photometry presented in this manuscript is included as an ancillary fil

Chandra, HST/STIS, NICER, Swift, and TESS Detail the Flare Evolution of the Repeating Nuclear Transient ASASSN-14ko

ASASSN-14ko is a nuclear transient at the center of the AGN ESO 253-G003 that undergoes periodic flares. Optical flares were first observed in 2014 by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) and their peak times are well-modeled with a period of $115.2^{+1.3}_{-1.2}$ days and period derivative of $-0.0026 \pm 0.0006$. Here we present ASAS-SN, Chandra, HST/STIS, NICER, Swift, and TESS data for the flares that occurred in December 2020, April 2021, July 2021, and November 2021. The HST/STIS UV spectra evolve from blue shifted broad absorption features to red shifted broad emission features over $\sim$10 days. The Swift UV/optical light curves peaked as predicted by the timing model, but the peak UV luminosities varied between flares and the UV flux in July 2021 was roughly half the brightness of all other peaks. The X-ray luminosities consistently decreased and the spectra became harder during the UV/optical rise but apparently without changes in absorption. Finally, two high-cadence TESS light curves from December 2020 and November 2018 showed that the slopes during the rising and declining phases changed over time, which indicates some stochasticity in the flare's driving mechanism. ASASSN-14ko remains observationally consistent with a repeating partial tidal disruption event, but, these rich multi-wavelength data are in need of a detailed theoretical model.Comment: 25 pages, 14 figures, 4 tables; Submitted to ApJ, comments welcom