Aberrations of radio signals traversing the auroral ionosphere Semiannual analysis report, 1 Jul. 1968 - 31 Jan. 1969

Satellite observations of aberrations of radio signals traversing auroral ionosphere indicating decreasing trend in scintillation activit

The responsibility to protect and the use of force: remaking the procrustean bed?

The emergence of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) owed much to the need to enhance the UN’s ability to act forcibly in the face of the most extreme cases of gross human suffering. Too often in the past such responses were emasculated or thwarted by the necessity to successfully navigate the UN Charter’s prescriptions over the use of force, by the unwillingness of member states to provide military forces, or by a combination of the two. In accepting that certain types of inhuman activity can lead to the legitimate use of force within the UN Charter framework, the adoption of R2P appeared to resolve at least some of these problems, and as such it offered hope to those wishing to see the UN adopt a more assertive response to the grossest of human rights abuses. But, using stalemate over Syria as its backdrop, this article demonstrates the dubiousness of the claim that such a normative development can ever trump the hard edged political and strategic factors which determine when states will accept and/or participate in the use of force, and it suggests a radical solution to the dangers inherent in R2P’s intimate association with military intervention

Induced Polarization Effects Associated With Hydrocarbon Accumulations: Minimization and Evaluation of Cultural Influences

Abstract The use of induced polarization (IP) methods in oil and gas exploration dates back to the 1930s, but the validity of anomalies has been difficult to establish. Although recent geochemical and downhole research has verified the source of IP anomalies in some geologic environments, the influence of cultural (anthropogenic) features on the electrical data remains a serious stumbling block to the acceptance of electrical methods in oil exploration. Spurious effects from power lines, pipelines, fences, and well casings can be misinterpreted as anomalies from hydrocarbon alteration or can mask true alteration anomalies. The cultural problem is not insurmountable, however, and it is not valid to assume automatically that all IP anomalies measured over oil fields are the result of culture. A case study of the development of an oil field near Post, Texas, illustrates how proper survey design can be used to minimize and evaluate the effects of culture in the interpretation of IP survey data. Evaluation of before-and-after IP data sets and two-dimensional finite element modeling strongly support the interpretation that the observed IP anomaly results from hydrocarbon-induced alteration and not from well casing or other cultural effects. Furthermore, the interpreted extent of the IP anomaly as defined in 1982 agrees well with the productive limits of the field as it exists more than 12 years later