Law Constraints Research Articles

GRGM900C: A degree 900 lunar gravity model from GRAIL primary and extended mission data.

We have derived a gravity field solution in spherical harmonics to degree and order 900, GRGM900C, from the tracking data of the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) Primary (1 March to 29 May 2012) and Extended Missions (30 August to 14 December 2012). A power law constraint of 3.6 ×10−4/ℓ2 was applied only for degree ℓ greater than 600. The model produces global correlations of gravity, and gravity predicted from lunar topography of ≥ 0.98 through degree 638. The model's degree strength varies from a minimum of 575–675 over the central nearside and farside to 900 over the polar regions. The model fits the Extended Mission Ka-Band Range Rate data through 17 November 2012 at 0.13 μm/s RMS, whereas the last month of Ka-Band Range-Rate data obtained from altitudes of 2–10 km fit at 0.98 μm/s RMS, indicating that there is still signal inherent in the tracking data beyond degree 900.

Diffusion Processes Satisfying a Conservation Law Constraint

We investigate coupled stochastic differential equations governingNnonnegative continuous random variables that satisfy a conservation principle. In various fields a conservation law requires a set of fluctuating variables to be nonnegative and (if appropriately normalized) sum to one. As a result, any stochastic differential equation model to be realizable must not produce events outside of the allowed sample space. We develop a set of constraints on the drift and diffusion terms of such stochastic models to ensure that both the nonnegativity and the unit-sum conservation law constraints are satisfied as the variables evolve in time. We investigate the consequences of the developed constraints on the Fokker-Planck equation, the associated system of stochastic differential equations, and the evolution equations of the first four moments of the probability density function. We show that random variables, satisfying a conservation law constraint, represented by stochastic diffusion processes, must have diffusion terms that are coupled and nonlinear. The set of constraints developed enables the development of statistical representations of fluctuating variables satisfying a conservation law. We exemplify the results with the bivariate beta process and the multivariate Wright-Fisher, Dirichlet, and Lochner’s generalized Dirichlet processes.

Relationship between grain composition and debris flow characteristics: a case study of the Jiangjia Gully in China

Debris flow occurs frequently (ten events on average per year) and displays a great variety of properties in the Jiangjia Gully (JJG) in southwest China. We find that the material of debris flow satisfies a universal grain size distribution (GSD) of P (D) = CD(-mu)exp(-D/D-c), and the parameters mu and D-c are closely related to the dynamical properties such as flow density, velocity, and discharge. A small mu implies a small porosity and possible high excess pore pressure in flow, reflecting high mobility and capacity of transportation, and a large D-c means a wide range of grain composition and hence a high grain concentration. A debris flow always achieves a state of certain mobility and density that can be well described by mu and D-c, and the parameters impose power law constraints on the fluctuations of debris flow surges. An upper limit of unit-width discharge is estimated as Q(u) = 1.25 D-c 1.12. Variation of GSD parameters also describes material exchanges between debris flow and streambed sediment. Intense incision or deposition occurs when remarkable difference of grain composition exists. As the GSD is satisfied universally, the results derived from JJG are expected to be applicable for evaluating the properties and peak discharge of a potential debris flow in other conditions.

Regulating Intercity Bus Stops in New York City

The intercity bus industry has grown significantly in recent years and has become an increasingly popular option for people traveling to and from New York City. Hundreds of intercity buses depart from New York City streets daily. Although these buses provide a useful, low-cost transportation option for New Yorkers, the fact that the buses were legally able to stop in any “No Standing” zone led to disruption to the local traffic network through increased sidewalk and street congestion. The New York State Legislature passed a law in August 2012 allowing the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) to implement a permit system for intercity bus operators. The New York City DOT has developed a rule that requires intercity bus operators to apply online for a permit from the New York City DOT before the operators can make on-street stops in the city. Bus operators must submit detailed operating information to the New York City DOT, in addition to a permit fee based on the weekly number of arrivals and departures at the proposed stop. The permit-approval process includes the New York City DOT evaluation based on public health and safety criteria and consultation with local community boards and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, where appropriate. Following an application period, police will be able to enforce the law against intercity buses not carrying permits or not properly utilizing their assigned stop, and thereby the city can manage this industry within the constraints of federal and state laws.

Ambiguous Property Rights: A Taxonomic and Exploratory Account of Post-colonial Rural Housing in Chinese Hong Kong

This paper explains the nature of David Li’s concept of ambiguous property rights and three angles to see right ambiguity from a Coasian-constrained choice-theoretical perspective and elaborate on that ambiguity in terms of five scenarios of de jure and de facto rights. The case of indigenous village housing in post-colonial Hong Kong under a mature system of the rule of law is used to demonstrate the ambiguities due to a gap between de jure and de facto property rights that may not degenerate into anarchy due to rational choices made under common law constraints driven ultimately by the land market. The implications of the case study for evaluating ambiguities in property rights in China are also discussed.

Free software production as critical social practice

This paper analyses the phenomenon of free and open source software (FOSS) in the light of Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello's The new spirit of capitalism. It argues that collaborative FOSS production by volunteer software developers is a species of critical social practice in Boltanski and Chiapello's sense: rooted in resistance to capitalist social relations, and yet also a source of values that justify the new routes to profitability associated with contemporary network capitalism. Advanced via collective projects that are sustained by hacker norms and privately legislated ‘copyleft’ law, the FOSS ethos is apparently antithetical to private property-based accumulation. Yet it can be shown to embody the ‘new spirit of capitalism’ in its most distilled form; moreover FOSS developers have instituted new forms of property and new modes of profit creation around software that are in the process of being adapted for use in other economic sectors. Meanwhile, the private law constraints on profit-seeking that have emerged from the FOSS movement are counteracting some of the social pathologies that accompany network capitalism only to consolidate others. The paper concludes by identifying likely bases for a renewal of critique given these realities.

Development of Small Holder Plantation Forests: An Analysis from Policy Process Perspective

This research was conducted to learn the inhibiting factors for renewal of forest utilization policy, particularly the policy of small holder plantation forests/HTR), by government. To achieve the objective of this research, there were studies on contents of law and regulations, respond of stakeholders toward those law-regulations, and problem of contents and constraints of law and regulations improvement through analysis approach of policy making process. It was found that technical constraints in HTR development were weak provision of forest territory and poor institutional strengthening of the participant community to be ready to receive permit or fund for HTR development. Such phenomena were due to contents of HTR policy which have more tendencies to answer the problem of absence of bureaucracy and administration procedure which should be determined on the basis of authorities of agencies of central and local government, rather than answering the problem faced by HTR participant community. Policy narrative in the past period in implementing large business policy of natural forest utilization were still dominant, accompanied with weak consideration in making and implementing policy toward forest territory conflict and weak socio-economic and bargaining position of the community, resulting in expensive public service which could not fulfill the community's need.

Importance of establishing threshold levels for food allergens

The concept of a threshold for provoking potential allergic reactivity is an important research target to pursue over the next 5 years. A food allergen threshold is defined as the eliciting dose or minimal quantified amount of ingested allergen that will provoke an immunologic (ie, IgE-mediated) reaction.1 Defining such a zone will benefit multiple sectors of society: food allergic individuals, their caretakers, the food industry, policymakers, and government officials.1–3 This is a necessary strategy given the constraints of the current labeling laws and the reality that such levels may exist, can be defined at individual and population levels, and might improve quality of life through expanding food choices.

Update from Australia: the copyright cloud hanging over our national collections

Purpose – High-speed internet and digital technology offer new ways of accessing and interpreting collection material in our cultural institutions. The ability of cultural institutions to unlock access to their collections online is constrained by copyright law. This paper examines the push in Australia for cultural institutions to “set collections free” online, and copyright law reform developments that hinder or facilitate making comprehensive online experiences of collections a reality. Design/methodology/approach – It considers constraints in Australian copyright law following the adoption of increased IP enforcement and protection standards under the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement, in light of internationalisation of these standards through recent multi-lateral trade agreements. Finally, it considers copyright law reform options to better “unlock” or “set free” collections in cyberspace. Findings – It recommends the inclusion of safeguards for copyright exceptions and limitations in trade agreements, and reaffirmation of user and public institution rights of access to information. It warns against the adoption of onerous anti-circumvention provisions. It also recommends various domestic law reform options to free up access to cultural collections. Originality/value – Australia was one of the early adopters of the US-IP model that is fast becoming the international standard for enforcement and protection of IP rights. As such, looking at current Australian copyright law may help us better understand the effect IP-maximalist chapters being promoted in multilateral trade agreements may have on similar net-IP importing countries.

Law Reform or Systemic Reform? Stakeholder Perceptions of Resource Constraints in Mental Health in Australia, New Zealand and Canada

This article examines resource constraints in the mental health systems in Australia, New Zealand and Canada in light of the results of a qualitative study analysing interviews with 65 representatives of consumer and carer organisations, lawyers, judges and mental health professionals conducted between September 2008 and December 2010. The interviews were analysed using grounded theory, and an unanticipated finding was that resource constraints in mental health law and practice emerged as the most discussed theme. The analysis revealed that participants were concerned about (1) the futility of law reform without the injection of adequate resources in their mental health systems; (2) the types of resources that they perceived were lacking; and (3) the consequences of those resource constraints on the operation of mental health systems at a systemic level. This paper highlights the importance of systemic factors in the development of mental health law, policy and practice.

Development of a Unifying Framework for the Restrictions in Multi-component Diffusion Close to Equilibrium

In this work a unifying framework is developed for multi-component diffusion close to equilibrium by proposing additional restrictions for the Fickian diffusion coefficients such as the Onsager reciprocal relations. Moreover, it is shown that these additional restrictions can explain the discrepancy, reported in the literature, of calculating negative concentrations in Fickian ternary free diffusion observed even if the second thermodynamic law constraints and the phase stability criteria are satisfied. It is believed that this work could be used to further investigate multi-component diffusion.

Moving beyond the critical synthesis: does the law preclude a future for US unions?

This retrospective essay on Tomlins' The State and Unions assesses the durability of his observations in light of developments over the past quarter century. The decline of unions in the context of minimal protections offered under contemporary labor law seems to fit Tomlins' thesis that the New Deal offered only a counterfeit liberty to labor. A brief review of failed efforts at union revitalization demonstrates that labor's waning fortunes are as much a sign of institutional rigidity and internal weakness as result of external constraints. Any current semblance of liberty offered to the U.S. working class is indeed counterfeit, but the source of fraud is the full set of neoliberal economic policies, not the narrow constraints of labor law alone.

Private Equity Limited Partnerships in China: A Critical Evaluation of Active Limited Partners

Although current academic thinking tells us that private equity investors are generally passive in the management of funds, Chinese private equity market is dominated by funds whose investors are relatively active. The interference of limited partners in a fund's management triggers internal conflicts between partners. This article examines the legal and practical reasons for this phenomenon. Based on extensive interviews with market participants, it is found that the agency problems, the legal weaknesses of limited partners under Chinese law and several regulatory constraints on China's private equity industry have influenced the decisions of investors to pursue active strategies in funds. This article also examines the effectiveness of the control rule and a few of the common private contractual arrangements in addressing the agency problem in the context of Chinese private equity funds, and suggests strategies to mitigate the problem.

Political economy of nation building: the world's unfinished business

Donor nations may advise and counsel, but the creation of a liberal nation state falls to its own people. They must create laws, exercise their liberties, provide freedom of belief and expression, and protect individual property rights. No nation becomes or remains free unless its people build, use, and defend these institutions, and protect them with understanding, vigilance, and effort. The Political Economy of Nation Building reviews the effects of political structures on the evolution and stability of liberalism in developing nations and considers the outlook for their success. Discussing the origins and applications of the modern liberal state from an explicitly Anglo- and Euro-centric view, Mack Ott addresses the origins of the rule of law and innovations that led to the rise of a market economy, separation of faith and governance, and the autonomy of finance--key components of the liberal state. He then addresses the emergence of sustained economic growth, a bridge between the liberal infrastructure and its application during the construction of a nation. Ott examines budget policy and laws, and accurate and timely economic and financial statistical reporting that assure donors that the recipient government is operating within the constraints of law. He addresses the beneficial effects of privatization of state-owned industry, examines the costs and benefits of nurturing non-governmental associations, and concludes with a review of transparent fiscal and monetary policies and the importance of non-interference in financial markets by the state.

Solvable model for quantum gravity?

We study a type of geometric theory with a non-dynamical 1-form field. Its dynamical variables are an su(2) gauge field and a triad of su(2) valued 1-forms. Hamiltonian decomposition reveals that the theory has a true Hamiltonian, together with spatial diffeomorphism and Gauss law constraints, which generate the only local symmetries. Although perturbatively non-renormalizable, the model provides a test bed for the non-perturbative quantization techniques of loop quantum gravity.

Renewing Legal Theory: History and the Unity of Legal Things

This is a comprehensive, speculative, non-naturalist and historicist framework of a theory of law. I address the relationship between nature and law in general; the nature of law; the nature and taxonomy of legal things; the effect of the Enlightenment on legal theory; the relationship between science and law, and between law and history; the poverty and dangers of both positivism and natural law theory; and I address several philosophical issues that are concomitant to an understanding of law in general, including the role of the universal, the centrality of the vision of life; the relationship between life and consciousness (critiquing Nagel’s new book in the process), consciousness and history, and history and law; sacrifice; evil, and the future, among other things. I explicitly place myself in the Aristotelian/Hegelian traditions. As a subtext, I grapple with containing the systematic problem science presents to legal/political order. By laying the groundwork for a renewal of legal theory outside of the constraints of positivism and natural law the framework also lays the groundwork for a reevaluation of the role science should play in the political/legal order, and therefore of science itself. The mechanism for these reevaluations is enabled by the specific grounding of the theory in the findings of neuroscience. Neuroscience teaches one of two irreconcilable things: either man has no free will; or there is a scope of free and real capacity for the mature human to make choices, to exercise free will (within constraints). The first of these two conclusions must be wrong because it contradicts not only experimental findings about man, but it contradicts the experience of every mature human. It is a philosophical conclusion based on Enlightenment metaphysics of science. If man has no free will, there is no basis for political order, for responsibility, etc., an argument we are familiar with but fail to understand and follow to its logical and historical implications, as now I do. I begin my argument with a theory of consciousness and freedom.

QCD on an Infinite Lattice

We construct a mathematically well–defined framework for the kinematics of Hamiltonian QCD on an infinite lattice in \({\mathbb{R}^3}\) , and it is done in a C*-algebraic context. This is based on the finite lattice model for Hamiltonian QCD developed by Kijowski, Rudolph e.a.. To extend this model to an infinite lattice, we need to take an infinite tensor product of nonunital C*-algebras, which is a nonstandard situation. We use a recent construction for such situations, developed by Grundling and Neeb. Once the field C*-algebra is constructed for the fermions and gauge bosons, we define local and global gauge transformations, and identify the Gauss law constraint. The full field algebra is the crossed product of the previous one with the local gauge transformations. The rest of the paper is concerned with enforcing the Gauss law constraint to obtain the C*-algebra of quantum observables. For this, we use the method of enforcing quantum constraints developed by Grundling and Hurst. In particular, the natural inductive limit structure of the field algebra is a central component of the analysis, and the constraint system defined by the Gauss law constraint is a system of local constraints in the sense of Grundling and Lledo. Using the techniques developed in that area, we solve the full constraint system by first solving the finite (local) systems and then combining the results appropriately. We do not consider dynamics.

Islamic Law & Women Rights in Bangladesh

The concept of women rights is in fact originated from Islamic jurisprudence although there many debates and arguments on this issue. It is observed that the position of women was ignored since the pre-Islamic customs of the Arabian people in all respects. But after the revelation of the Hoy Quran, it is found that many suras such as the sura An-Nissa, Attin, Al-Mayeda etc.; cover a wide range of women rights. The Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Communism etc.; emphasizes equal rights to men and women. However, the women rights as guaranteed to the women are not implemented properly due to unconsciousness and ignorance as to the importance of the women, lack of knowledge in Islam etc.; and therefore, the scholars of the Muslim world suggested that the respective government may pass some leading laws empowering the women community such as the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance, 1961; the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act, 1939; the Family Laws Ordinance, 1985 etc.; which is really significant in this regard. It is being done in the most of the Islamic countries in the world including Pakistan, India, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain etc. The authority should implement the provisions of the International Bill of Human Rights as to the women rights. In Bangladesh, there are some important laws as mentioned above. This study however, examines the potentialities and constraints of the Islamic Family Laws in Bangladesh focusing on the women rights as applied in in the country based on the primary and secondary sources consisting of 25 respondents in the different criteria such as lecturers, students, primary school teachers, common people, business people, lawyers etc.; in Sylhet.

Study on Autopilot Dynamics with Robust Guidance Law and Terminal Constraint in Mechanical Engineering

A new nonlinear robust guidance law was proposed by considering autopilot dynamics. Firstly, the mathematic model was built according to relationship between target and missile in vertical plane, by introducing the one-order dynamics of autopilot in Mechanical Engineering. Secondly, the nonlinear terminal guidance was obtained by applying the H∞ control theory under the performance index of minimizing the terminal angular constraint tracking error and control energy, and the asymptotic stability of guidance system was strictly proven by Lyapunov stability theory avoiding the estimation of the time-to-go. Finally, an illustrative example was given to show that the guidance law was more robust and both the impact angle and guidance precision were met in the case of no any target information.

Consumption driven population dynamics (CDPD): Further explorations

The consumption driven population dynamics (CDPD) model, described and demonstrated in my previous paper (Bentley, 2006), suggests a fundamental structure connecting all life produced by simple, independent mechanisms for mass gain and loss that are determined by those constraints of natural law governing transfers of mass and energy. This basic system may be modified to a greater or lesser degree by additional mechanisms that account for living and nonliving elements of the environment, much of which is stochastic. Collectively, this accounts for the broad range of population dynamics we observe within the web of linkages connecting all living things.CDPD implies that mortality has a much greater influence on the dynamic than previously considered. While this is certainly no surprise to those doing field research, mortality has not been properly addressed in prior population models. A population subject to hard times, very low consumption or extreme environmental conditions, can suffer losses at rates that are orders of magnitude greater than rates of gain under the most favorable conditions. CDPD exhibits this dynamic under harsh conditions.The ‘CDPD response’, a biologically derived model of consumption functional response that may be used in conjunction with the CDPD model, introduced but never exercised in the previous paper, is demonstrated to show the effects of past consumption. The ‘CDPD response’ is explored in the effort to more completely understand how past consumption may help explain certain observations.While scenarios driven by consumption appear to explain single peak events and seasonal oscillations, environmental effects aside from consumption produce stable aperiodic oscillations with characteristics highly similar to the great majority of extended time series data contained in the NERC database.