Defense Requests for International Judical Assistance: The U.K. Perspective

The purpose of this Essay is to examine the machinery for providing evidence to defendants in foreign proceedings and the extent to which there is equality of arms and opportunity between the prosecutor and defendant when obtaining evidence from abroad in U.K. proceedings. This Essay will also identify the new problems that are starting to emerge when such equality is threatened. To do so, it explores the mechanism by which mutual assistance is governed in the United Kingdom - the Criminal Justice (International Co-operation) Act of 1990

Grappling with “Solicitation”: The Need For Statutory Reform in North Carolina after Lawrence v. Texas

Teresa Pope was charged with solicitation of the crime against nature for offering oral sex for money to two undercover police officers.5 Solicitation is an inchoate offense-like attempt or conspiracy-that relies on the criminality of the underlying conduct. 6 Although oral sex by itself cannot be criminalized post-Lawrence, the North Carolina Court of Appeals held in State v. Pope that the charge of solicitation of the crime against nature survived Lawrence by virtue of an exception in that decision allowing criminalization of prostitution. 10 In State v. Richardson, the Supreme Court of North Carolina construed this statute to apply only to vaginal, heterosexual sex.11 Consistent with the canon that criminal laws are to be interpreted narrowly, the court explained that [i]f the legislature wishes to include within [the prostitution statute] other sexual acts, such as cunnilingus, fellatio, masturbation, buggery or sodomy, it should do so with specificity

Polynomial decay of correlations in the generalized baker's transformation

We introduce a family of area preserving generalized baker's transformations acting on the unit square and having sharp polynomial rates of mixing for Holder data. The construction is geometric, relying on the graph of a single variable "cut function". Each baker's map B is non-uniformly hyperbolic and while the exact mixing rate depends on B, all polynomial rates can be attained. The analysis of mixing rates depends on building a suitable Young tower for an expanding factor. The mechanisms leading to a slow rate of correlation decay are especially transparent in our examples due to the simple geometry in the construction. For this reason we propose this class of maps as an excellent testing ground for new techniques for the analysis of decay of correlations in non-uniformly hyperbolic systems. Finally, some of our examples can be seen to be extensions of certain 1-D non-uniformly expanding maps that have appeared in the literature over the last twenty years thereby providing a unified treatment of these interesting and well-studied examples.Comment: 24 pages, 2 figure

Centrality and pseudorapidity dependence of the transverse energy flow in pPb collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 5.02 TeV

The almost hermetic coverage of CMS is used to measure the distribution of transverse energy as a function of pseudo-rapidity for pPb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 5.02$ TeV. For minimum bias collisions $(1/N)~dE_T/d\eta$ reaches 23 GeV which implies an $E_T$ per participant pair comparable to that of peripheral PbPb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 2.76$ TeV. The centrality dependence of transverse energy production has been studied using centrality measures defined in three different angular regions. There is a strong auto-correlation between $(1/N)~dE_T/d\eta$ and the $\eta$ range used to define centrality %both for data and the EPOS-LHC and HIJING event generators. The centrality dependence of the data is much stronger for $\eta$ values on the lead side than the proton side and shows significant differences from that predicted by either event generator.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, proceedings of the Quark Matter 2015 Conferenc

Transport of adsorbed gases through graphitised carbon membranes

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International Relations and European Foreign Policy Unit Symposium: Symposium in Honour of Professor Christopher Hill

On 12 May 2017, the International Relations Department hosted a symposium in honour of Professor Christopher Hill, a former member of the Department. The symposium brought together dozens of Professor Hill’s former students and colleagues, as well as current members and students in the department, to show their appreciation of his numerous contributions to the study of international relations and foreign policy analysis

Christopher Murray: Report on his global South Doctoral Fieldwork Research Award 2016

Ghana is marking 60 years of independence from the British Empire this year. This was a fact that I had strangely not considered before arriving in the country’s capital – Accra — to carry out archival research during the first week of May (funded by the Global South Doctoral Fieldwork Research Award in the International Relations Department at LSE)

Ulam's method for Lasota-Yorke maps with holes

Ulam's method is a rigorous numerical scheme for approximating invariant densities of dynamical systems. The phase space is partitioned into connected sets and an inter-set transition matrix is computed from the dynamics; an approximate invariant density is read off as the leading left eigenvector of this matrix. When a hole in phase space is introduced, one instead searches for \emph{conditional} invariant densities and their associated escape rates. For Lasota-Yorke maps with holes we prove that a simple adaptation of the standard Ulam scheme provides convergent sequences of escape rates (from the leading eigenvalue), conditional invariant densities (from the corresponding left eigenvector), and quasi-conformal measures (from the corresponding right eigenvector). We also immediately obtain a convergent sequence for the invariant measure supported on the survivor set. Our approach allows us to consider relatively large holes. We illustrate the approach with several families of examples, including a class of Lorenz maps.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, added section on Lorenz-like map

Continuous Earth-Moon payload exchange using motorised tethers with associated dynamics

A means of conducting continuous payload exchanges between the Earth and Moon would allow materials to be transported between them on a regular basis and could be used to supply vital resources to a permanent lunar colony. In addition to this, it could provide a means of returning materials, extracted from the mineral rich lunar surface, back to Earth. The use of symmetrically laden motorised momentum exchange tethers would allow these transfers to be conducted free of any conventional propulsion, purely by the exchange of momentum between the payloads, and without the subsequent loss of orbital altitude experienced by asymmetrical tether configurations. Although this is an exciting prospect it is not without its challenges, for example, if the Moon orbited a spherical Earth adhering to Kepler's laws, the transport of materials would be conducted with clockwork precision and the colonisation of the Moon would already have taken place. However, Kepler's laws are idealised to the two body motion of perfectly spherical bodies and are applicable only in the most simplified of circumstances. The Moon's motion is in reality complex and the establishment of such a system is made even more so by the oblateness effects of a non-spherical Earth acting on the tether system in Earth orbit. Adding to this complexity is the less significant but noticeable effect of the Moon's oblateness acting on a tether in lunar orbit. Other challenges include the design of a device to capture the payloads at the tether's tips at orbital velocity in addition to effecting their release at the correct instant; and the tether system's reaction to mechanical shocks which are a real possibility if velocity mismatches between the tether tips and payloads are significant. Restricting the scope of this investigation, the aim of the following is: to determine whether such a system can be realistically established when taking into account the complex nature of the Moon and resulting opportunities for payload exchanges; to establish the logistical design of the system required to conduct these regular two-way exchanges; to determine suitable configurations of the Earth and Moon orbiting tethers for conducting these exchanges when planetary oblateness effects are taken into account in addition to the complex motion of the Moon about Earth; to configure the trajectory design of the payloads between these tethers such that the logistical requirements are satisfied; and finally to investigate an anomaly observed whilst conducting simulations of the motion of a symmetrically laden tether in orbit about Earth which relates to the theory behind the concept of gravity gradient stabilisation