Separate Regimes Research Articles

Рerspectives of the establishment of special legal regimes of labor migrants

The article examines perspectives of creating special legal regimes for certain categories of migrant workers with the aim of increasing the level of migration security in Ukraine. Some innovations to domestic legislation are proposed, according to world experience in the sphere of creating separate migration regimes for certain groups of people.

Test particles in relativistic resistive magnetohydrodynamics

The Black Hole Accretion Code (BHAC) has recently been extended with the ability to evolve charged test particles according to the Lorentz force within resistive relativistic magnetohydrodynamics simulations. We apply this method to evolve particles in a reconnecting current sheet that forms due to the coalescence of two magnetic flux tubes in 2D Minkowski spacetime. This is the first analysis of charged test particle evolution in resistive relativistic magnetohydrodynamics simulations. The energy distributions of an ensemble of 100.000 electrons are analyzed, as well as the acceleration of particles in the plasmoids that form in the reconnection layer. The effect of the Lundquist number, magnetization, and plasma-β on the particle energy distribution is explored for a range of astrophysically relevant parameters. We find that electrons accelerate to non-thermal energies in the thin current sheets in all cases. We find two separate acceleration regimes: An exponential increase of the Lorentz factor during the island coalescence where the acceleration depends linearly on the resistivity and a nonlinear phase with high variability. These results are relevant for determining energy distributions and acceleration sites obtaining radiation maps in large-scale magnetohydrodynamics simulations of black hole accretion disks and jets.

Model selection for hybrid dynamical systems via sparse regression.

Hybrid systems are traditionally difficult to identify and analyse using classical dynamical systems theory. Moreover, recently developed model identification methodologies largely focus on identifying a single set of governing equations solely from measurement data. In this article, we develop a new methodology, Hybrid-Sparse Identification of Nonlinear Dynamics, which identifies separate nonlinear dynamical regimes, employs information theory to manage uncertainty and characterizes switching behaviour. Specifically, we use the nonlinear geometry of data collected from a complex system to construct a set of coordinates based on measurement data and augmented variables. Clustering the data in these measurement-based coordinates enables the identification of nonlinear hybrid systems. This methodology broadly empowers nonlinear system identification without constraining the data locally in time and has direct connections to hybrid systems theory. We demonstrate the success of this method on numerical examples including a mass–spring hopping model and an infectious disease model. Characterizing complex systems that switch between dynamic behaviours is integral to overcoming modern challenges such as eradication of infectious diseases, the design of efficient legged robots and the protection of cyber infrastructures.

Exploring the new policy framework of environmental performance management for shipping: a pilot study

Changes in weather patterns are now recorded more and more frequently in various locations of the Earth. Collective action is needed to deal with the challenges of climate change; the maritime industry must contribute its fair share to those activities, aiming to mitigate a risk that can threaten humanity’s own existence. On the positive side, both the European Union (EU) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) have clear ambitions to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from ships that are linked to climate change, and two similar albeit separate regimes have been introduced. EU’s monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) regulation of CO2 emissions has already been influencing shipping activities, since the related data collection has started on the 1st of January 2018. The second initiative is the IMO’s data collection system (DCS), which revolves primarily around fuel consumption; the necessary data collection started on the 1st of January 2019. To support an effective environmental performance management framework for the maritime industry, it is necessary to create a robust database that describes all aspects of energy efficient ship operations, with an emphasis on the inventory of CO2 emitted from ships. The analysis at hand examines the challenges in the relevant data collection scheme, with a particular focus on MRV, considering that the specific regulation is already operationalized. An online survey was conducted among maritime professionals in Singapore and Bangladesh to examine the gap between current energy-related regulations/policies and standing operational practices. The findings address the issues relating to shipping operations and certain compliance, institutional and management matters. They also identify the industry’s preparedness for this new policy framework of environmental performance management as well as the impact on existing energy efficiency practices. A very important conclusion derived is that the quality of data collected is crucial for the effective management of emissions related to shipping and the associated fuel consumption.

Properties of cold and warm H I gas phases derived from a Gaussian decomposition of HI4PI data

Context. A large fraction of the interstellar medium can be characterized as a multiphase medium. The neutral hydrogen gas is bistable with cold and warm neutral medium (CNM and WNM respectively) but there is evidence for an additional phase at intermediate temperatures, a lukewarm neutral medium (LNM) that is thermally unstable. Aims. We use all sky data from the HI4PI survey to separate these neutral H I phases with the aim to determine their distribution and phase fractions f in the local interstellar medium. Methods. HI4PI observations, gridded on an nside = 1024 HEALPix grid, were decomposed into Gaussian components. From the frequency distribution of the velocity dispersions we infer three separate linewidth regimes. Accordingly we extract the H I line emission corresponding to the CNM, LNM, and WNM. We generateed all-sky maps of these phases in the local H I gas with − 8 < vLSR < 8 km s−1. Results. Each of the H I phases shows distinct structures on all scales. The LNM never exists as a single phase but contributes on average 41% of the H I. The CNM is prominent only for 22% of the sky, contributes there on average 34% but locally up to 60% of the H I and is associated with dust at temperatures Tdust ~ 18.6 K. Embedded cold filaments show a clear anti-correlation between CNM and LNM. Also the smoothly distributed WNM is anti-correlated with the CNM. It contributes for the rest of the sky 39% with dust associated at temperatures Tdust ~ 19.4 K. Conclusions. The CNM in filaments exists on small scales. Here the observed anti-correlation between LNM and CNM implies that both, filaments and the surrounding more extended LNM, must have a common origin.

Antitrust Appraisal of Vertical Agreements in the ASEAN Economic Community: Proposals for a More Harmonised Approach

In spite of the ASEAN goal of harmonising national competition policies and laws, the ASEAN Member States (AMSs) adopt an array of different approaches towards a number of procedural and substantive competition law issues, including the substantive appraisal of vertical agreements. The question of whether, and if so how, analysis of vertical agreements under the competition laws of the AMSs should be aligned has, to date, received little attention from ASEAN competition agencies. This paper notes that this is, nonetheless, a matter of considerable importance. Not only do the differences in approach adopted undermine ASEAN’s stated objectives, but they are likely to be damaging competition and efficiency and inhibiting market integration.The paper draws on practice and experience in the US and EU to consider whether, and if so how, the approach to vertical agreements under the competition law systems of the AMSs should be reformed or developed to ensure a more coherent policy which is optimal for achieving ASEAN’s objectives. One issue considered is whether the EU policy towards resale price maintenance and restraints on cross-border trade should be emulated. In particular, whether a hardline approach should be adopted against vertical restraints which enable firms to partition the ASEAN market along national lines and perpetuate price differences in the AMSs, thereby undermining its single market objective.The paper concludes that although greater harmonisation of policies towards vertical agreements might be desirable, it will be difficult to achieve within the existing national systems without some legislative changes and significant cooperation between the ASEAN competition authorities. Given the different perspectives that the separate legislative regimes reflect, debate will be required to build consensus around a more uniform approach that can effectively be implemented within each of the national systems.

Critical review of the local thermal equilibrium assumption in heterogeneous porous media: Dependence on permeability and porosity contrasts

Increasing demand for green energy sparked a renewed interest in extracting geothermal energy resources. An accurate description of the temperature field and related heat extraction potential remains a challenge and is critical for successful geothermal energy exploitation. Typically, two main approaches are used when modeling heat exchange and transport in geothermal reservoirs. The standard approach assumes immediate local thermal equilibrium between solid and fluid phases (LTE), while another approach considers heat transport separately for fluid and solid (LTNE). Both are then coupled through a heat exchange term. In these simple and common models, the host system is described as a heterogeneous porous media in which regions of higher fracture density are represented implicitly by areas of higher permeability within the porous media.In this work, we investigate both, LTE and LTNE, approaches and how they are affected by fluid and host rock characteristic properties. We especially focus on the influence of hydraulic heterogeneity in the porous material on the temperature difference between both approaches. We compare LTE and LTNE heat transfer models in a simple, two dimensional model with a layer of different hydraulic parameters embedded in a host rock, and study in detail the role of heterogeneous distributions of permeability and porosity. This simple geometrical model allows us to gain insights into the complex interaction between the different heat transfer models and fluid flow. Porosity and permeability contrast determine separate regimes in which the LTE assumption is lower or upper bound of outflow temperature. Using these results, we compare LTE and LTNE models in a synthetic field case with a complex heterogeneous porous media with large permeability contrast. We show that both models can diverge up to 7% in local fluid temperature, while the LTNE model is the lower bound if high permeability regions are also assumed to have a higher porosity.

A heuristic dynamical model of the North Atlantic Oscillation with a Lorenz-type chaotic attractor

Despite observational evidence of a distinct regime behaviour in the low-frequency variability of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the theoretical support for the existence of separate NAO regimes has been limited. Although NAO-like regimes have been detected in numerical models of varying complexity, the role of forcings and feedbacks originated by diabatic processes in the specific geographical setting of the North Atlantic region has not been explicitly advocated as a source of regime behaviour for the NAO. In this study, we develop a minimal theoretical model of the interactions between zonal flow (and associated temperature gradient), planetary waves and surface heat fluxes in the North Atlantic, guided by results from observational diagnostics. Using re-analysis data, we show that interactions between an equivalent barotropic NAO anomaly and climatological stationary waves with a baroclinic structure and a larger meridional scale generate a positive feedback between the NAO-like wave and the strength of the zonal flow. On the other hand, an increased zonal wind generates stronger surface heat fluxes which damp both the zonal and the wave components of the NAO-like anomaly. Using these observational results to guide the choice of empirical parameters, we construct a 3-variable model which is formally equivalent to the Lorenz (J Atmos Sci 20:130–141, 1963) chaotic model for Rayleigh–Benard convection, and possesses two regimes originated by oscillations around two weakly unstable stationary states. From a physical point of view, the two regimes correspond to opposite phases of a near-resonant planetary wave which occur when the zonal flow is either below (negative NAO) or above (positive NAO) the value corresponding to zero phase speed. Finally, we expand the model to a five-variable system by splitting the zonal-mean wind into its barotropic (i.e. height independent) and thermal component, and including a variable representing the area-averaged amplitude of high-frequency baroclinic eddies. Following earlier studies, we assume that high-frequency eddy activity grows by extracting available potential energy from the zonal-mean temperature gradient and decays by feeding kinetic energy into the barotropic component of the zonal wind. The extended model still displays a chaotic, two-regime behaviour, with additional sub-seasonal variability driven by the energy exchanges associated with high-frequency eddy amplification and decay.

Better constraining silica-enthalpy mixing models in a setting of two separate (karst and non-karst) dilution regimes

It would be possible to elucidate an ambiguity associated with the “silica-enthalpy mixing models” geothermometric technique, provided that an independent estimate was obtained concerning the enthalpy and the dissolved SiO2 content of the hot end-member involved in a mixture between two liquid-phase groundwaters. This would allow one to ascertain whether or not, prior to mixing with the cold parent-water, the hot end-member had undergone a boiling process. The specificities of the Băile Herculane geothermal system (South Carpathians, Romania) provides an opportunity to solve this uncertainty, in contrast to the majority of the so-far investigated natural settings. Advantage has been taken, in this respect, of the fact that a hot brackish Na-Ca-Cl-type parent-water was found to be involved at this site in two separate mixing settings: one which involved only a diluting fluid that was, itself, chloride-rich, and another one which additionally involved, as a third end-member, karst freshwater. By exploiting the two distinct, and converging, linear mixing trends (obtained from the conservatively-behaving natural tracers Cl− and Na+, as well as reasonably tight correlations between the chloride concentration and the contents of both heat and SiO2), the concerned hot brackish end-member contents of heat (enthalpy) and of conservative solutes were quite accurately assessed. This result enabled independent validation of the “no steam loss” hypothesis, out of various alternative scenarios proposed by the “silica-enthalpy mixing models” technique.

Elastic–Plastic Response of Clamped Square Plates Subjected to Repeated Quasi-Static Uniform Pressure

In this paper, an elastic–plastic analytical method is proposed to predict the cyclic deformation of the fully clamped square plates made of elastic–perfectly plastic material under repeated quasi-static uniform pressure. The whole process can be divided into the loading and unloading phases. The loading phase is formulated as three separate regimes: the elastic regime, the mixed elastic–plastic regime and the fully plastic regime. Unloading from a status in each phase is modeled as an elastic process. The total and elastic strain energies are characterized by the loading and unloading paths together with the displacement profiles, respectively. It is theoretically revealed that the elastic strain energy and the structural stiffness of the plate increase with the increasing transverse deflection. In addition, the effect of material elasticity is highlighted in the scenario of repeated loadings. The theoretical results are validated against the numerical simulations conducted by the commercial software ABAQUS. It is shown that the proposed elastic–plastic theoretical model has reasonable accuracy and can be employed to predict pressure–deflection relationship for this class of problems.

Protecting Battery and Energy Technology: Trade Secrets

Protecting Battery and Energy Technology: Trade Secrets by Charles Collins-Chase, and Kenneth Aruda, Ph.D. Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP Patents and trade secrets coexist as separate intellectual property regimes, and as a result, businesses and inventors must often choose between patent and trade secret protection. Recent legislative changes, including the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) in 2016 directly affect this choice. Manufacturers have long faced a dilemma when trying to protect some of their most valuable assets—the manufacturing methods behind their products. Method patents can be difficult to draft, license, and assert. But trade secrets offer limited protection absent misappropriation. The DTSA aims to place trade secrets on equal footing with other forms of intellectual property by creating a new federal civil cause of action for trade secret misappropriation, and includes an ex parte seizure provision and whistleblower protections. Under current legislation, the prior user defense preserves the right to continue the practice of a trade secret invention in the United States despite subsequent issuance of a third party patent. The availability of this defense limits the need to patent every commercial improvement and simplifies freedom to operate analysis for commercial processes. With these advantages in mind, for technologies such as catalysis, electrode production processes, and complex processing of gas diffusion layers, trade secrets could in some instances be a desirable alternative to patents. One should consider developing a trade secret protection plan that fits your business, and assess the sensitivity level of various types of information and establishing security measures that should be in place at each level. To qualify as a trade secret, federal law requires that “reasonable measures” be taken to keep the information secret. This presentation aims to inform how courts have treated various types of secrecy measures mentioned in recent cases.

Liberalization at the Speed of Light: International Trade in Electricity and Interconnected Networks

Rapid technological advances are making it technically and economically feasible to transport electricity over longer distances irrespective of the size of the entity who generates it and consumes it, activating international obligations that had been previously dormant. In parallel, global energy priorities have drastically changed as a result of the Paris Agreement and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, whilst approximately 15% of the world's population still lacks access to electricity. As governments try to adapt to the new sectoral landscape, on the one hand, and attempt to fulfil the desperate need to improve access to electricity in the poorest regions of the world, on the other, attention must be paid to the international rules that govern electricity trade as governments may infringe such rules when pursuing those goals. This article seeks to provide a general legal framework for the study of electricity measures, including those that relate to renewable energy, as they pertain to international trade. To this end, two issues are discussed. First, the three-pillared structure that governs global electricity trade, i.e. a combination of multilateral, regional and sectoral agreements, as well as the complex relationship between these separate legal regimes. Secondly, it analyses World Trade Organization (WTO) law as it applies to the trade in electrical energy and electricity services, and expounds how the three-pillared structure identified adapts to electricity trade. While primarily an electricity-related manuscript, this article covers issues of relevance not only to trade in electricity but to international trade law in general, particularly in connection with industries where international sectoral agreements coexist with multilateral and regional trade rules, discussing issues that range from conflict of norms to fragmentation and legal convergence.

Abortion in Northern Ireland: Has the Rubicon Been Crossed

There appears to be very little public and moral furore over the question of the legality of abortion in the United Kingdom compared to the position abortion takes in the public debate in, say, the United States of America. Yet despite this the legal position of abortion is markedly different in both countries. In the United States, there is a constitutional right to abortion. Contrastingly, in the United Kingdom abortion remains a criminal offence. Instead, abortion has been decriminalized in certain therapeutic situations and circumstances, as expounded by the Abortion Act 1967. However, the 1967 Act applies only to England, Wales and Scotland. It did not extend to Northern Ireland. Given the nature of the polity of the UK, there exist today three separate legal regimes for abortion – England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Writing in 1985, Madeleine Simms argued that “the 1967 Abortion Act was a half-way house. It handed the abortion decision to the medical profession. The next stage is to hand this very personal decision to the woman herself” (Simms 1985: 94). Despite this, the half-way house remains the governing statute in Great Britain, and Northern Irish abortion law is still governed by a Victorian statute, the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (OAPA). Recent events, however, have placed renewed focus on Northern Irish abortion law. In February 2018, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) released a report stating that: [T]housands of women and girls in Northern Ireland are subjected to grave and systematic violations of rights through being compelled to either travel outside Northern Ireland to procure a legal abortion or to carry their pregnancy to term (UN CEDAW 2018). On 25 May 2018, Ireland held a referendum on the Thirty-Six Amendment to the Constitution Bill 2018, which completed its passage through the Oireachtas, the Parliament of Ireland, in March 2018. Under Articles 46 and 47 of the Irish Constitution the Constitution can be amended by way of a Bill which is passed by both houses of the Oireachtas, and then put to the Irish people in a referendum. If the referendum is successful then the Bill is signed into law by the Irish President. The referendum was successful in May, approved by 66.4% of voters (Referendum Ireland 2018). The Bill sought to replace Article 40.3.3 of the Irish Constitution with the following words: Provision may be made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancy. The passing of the May 2018 referendum meant that Northern Ireland will have the most restrictive abortion laws in the British Isles. In part due to the Irish Referendum result, on 5 June 2018, the Labour MP Stella Creasy rose in the Commons Chamber to call for the repeal of the relevant sections of the OAPA across the United Kingdom, which make abortion a criminal offence. Such a repeal, if successful, would force both the Westminster Parliament and the Stormont Assembly in Belfast to legislate on the matter of abortion. Then, on 7 June 2018, the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court dismissed an appeal from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) challenging the legality of the abortion law in Northern Ireland, claiming that it was incompatible with Articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). The Supreme Court held by a majority of 4-3 that procedurally, the NIHRC did not have standing to bring proceedings and therefore the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to make any substantive declaration. Despite this, however, on the substantive issues Lady Hale made clear that a majority (Lord Mance, Lord Kerr, Lord Wilson and Lady Hale) held that the current Northern Irish law was incompatible with the right to respect for private and family life, protected by Article 8 ECHR, “insofar as it prohibits abortion in cases of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormality”. Lady Black agreed with that holding in the case of fatal foetal abnormality. Lord Kerr and Lord Wilson also held that it is incompatible with the right not to be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, guaranteed by Article 3 ECHR. Lady Hale made clear that the “unusual circumstances” of this judgment, it was not possible to follow the Court’s usual practice to identify a single lead judgment which represents the majority view. The Supreme Court decision, alongside the Parliamentary debate, places renewed focus upon the abortion laws of Northern Ireland, as well as those which apply to the rest of Great Britain, which suggests that the ‘half-way house’ of the 1967 Act may finally be close to being reformed to hand the decision of abortion to women themselves.

Merits Award Relating to Historic Rights in the South China Sea Arbitration: An Appraisal

AbstractThis paper provides an assessment of the Tribunal’s Award on the merits relating to the Philippines’ Submissions No. 1 and 2. First, it argues that the Convention is not the sole legal source of maritime rights. Second, the Tribunal erroneously infers from Article 311 that the Convention prevails over customary international law. Meanwhile, Article 293 does not terminate rules of general international law that are incompatible with the Convention. Third, the Tribunal, by deciding that historic rights under general international law have been superseded by the regimes of exclusive economic zone and continental shelf established under the Convention, fails to draw a distinction between the two separate legal regimes, namely the Convention and general international law. Fourth, as one of the “matters not regulated by the Convention”, historic rights should be governed by, and have been well established in, general international law.

Modern economic and legal instruments for preventing and minimalizing environmental damage

The recognition of the legal doctrine for public-legal nature of environmental harm and environmental legal liability will facilitate solving the problems of the development of the institute of environmental harm in Russia. Conditions such as a development of legal mechanisms for the prevention and minimization of environmental risks that correspond to the best world standards, including the system of risk management of environmental emergencies; an environmental insurance of residual environmental risks (mandatory, voluntary, comprehensive) and other financial guarantees; public-private partnerships (concessions) and the other favorable investment incentives for implementation of environmental projects will aid in further solving problems. The author substantiates the proposal to allocate a set of environmental safety requirements for normal business activities (in foreign practice – normal routine operation) into separate legal regimes, delimiting these requirements from the rules for extraordinary situations (emergencies), when such requirements are different. It is crucial to define the basic concepts (“emergencies,” “emergency discharges (emissions),” “technological incident”) within Federal laws; and to determine the order of development and approval of normative documents in the field of environmental protection which establish ecological and technical requirements for the normal routine operation and for emergencies as well (if such requirements vary). These requirements should be developed in accordance with the best foreign practices, particularly in accordance with the latest Seveso III Directive, along with the participation of business to which the relevant requirements will apply. In developed countries, due to the specifics of environmental harm, liability insurance for causing such harm is separated from other types of liability insurance for property damage. This phenomenon is analyzed in the article as a manifestation of tendency to enshrine the public-legal aspects of environmental harm, the separation of the latter from the property damage compensated in the framework of the classical tort. The development of environmental insurance in our country is constrained by a number of factors. The author substantiates the recommendations for their consideration and overriding, starting with the development of the Concept of environmental insurance as a comprehensive institution.

Towards a Holistic Regulatory Approach for the European Data Economy: Why the Illusive Notion of Non-Personal Data is Counterproductive to Data Innovation

The European Data Economy initiative is built on the belief that the current regulatory environment is not adequate in order to unleash the potential of such data-driven economy. The initiative focuses on so-called ‘non-personal data’ as a way to complement data protection rules that regulate the processing of personal data. The article illustrates that the notion of non-personal data as starting point for new data innovation policies is counterproductive for three fundamental reasons: (1) datasets are often mixed and the boundaries of personal data are too fluid to act as regulatory anchor; (2) two separate regimes applicable to opaque datasets might lead to strategic behavior of firms exploiting regulatory rivalry; (3) data has economic value irrespective of its legal classification, and there is no evidence that an elusive zone of non-personal data is more essential as innovation input. We argue that a holistic approach to ‘data’ as such, which a priori incorporates data protection considerations in its design is more likely to deliver successful innovation policy.

On the rate of black hole binary mergers in galactic nuclei due to dynamical hardening

We assess the contribution of dynamical hardening by direct three-body scattering interactions to the rate of stellar-mass black hole binary (BHB) mergers in galactic nuclei. We derive an analytic model for the single-binary encounter rate in a nucleus with spherical and disk components hosting a super-massive black hole (SMBH). We determine the total number of encounters $N_{\rm GW}$ needed to harden a BHB to the point that inspiral due to gravitational wave emission occurs before the next three-body scattering event. This is done independently for both the spherical and disk components. Using a Monte Carlo approach, we refine our calculations for $N_{\rm GW}$ to include gravitational wave emission between scattering events. For astrophysically plausible models we find that typically $N_{\rm GW} \lesssim$ 10. We find two separate regimes for the efficient dynamical hardening of BHBs: (1) spherical star clusters with high central densities, low velocity dispersions and no significant Keplerian component; and (2) migration traps in disks around SMBHs lacking any significant spherical stellar component in the vicinity of the migration trap, which is expected due to effective orbital inclination reduction of any spherical population by the disk. We also find a weak correlation between the ratio of the second-order velocity moment to velocity dispersion in galactic nuclei and the rate of BHB mergers, where this ratio is a proxy for the ratio between the rotation- and dispersion-supported components. Because disks enforce planar interactions that are efficient in hardening BHBs, particularly in migration traps, they have high merger rates that can contribute significantly to the rate of BHB mergers detected by the advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.

Regime Changes in Global Sea Surface Salinity Trend

Recent studies have shown significant sea surface salinity (SSS) changes at scales ranging from regional to global. In this study, we estimate global salinity means and trends using historical (1950–2014) SSS data from the UK Met Office Hadley Centre objectively analyzed monthly fields and recent data from the SMOS satellite (2010–2014). We separate the different components (regimes) of the global surface salinity by fitting a Gaussian Mixture Model to the data and using expectation–maximization to distinguish the means and trends of the data. The procedure uses a non-subjective method (Bayesian information criterion) to extract the optimal number of means and trends. The results show the presence of three separate regimes: Regime A (1950–1990) is characterized by small trend magnitudes; Regime B (1990–2009) exhibited enhanced trends; and Regime C (2009–2014) with significantly larger trend magnitudes. The salinity differences between regime means were around 0.01. The trend acceleration could be related to an enhanced global hydrological cycle or to a change in the sampling methodology. Understanding past SSS changes can provide insight into future climate evolution by complementing the knowledge acquired in recent decades from long-term temperature record analyses.

Hasegawa–Wakatani and Modified Hasegawa–Wakatani Turbulence Induced by Ion-Temperature-Gradient Instabilities

We review some recent results that have been obtained in the investigation of zonal flow emergence, by means of a gyrokinetic trapped ion model, in the regime of ion temperature gradient instabilities for tokamak plasmas. We show that an analogous formulation of the zonal flow dynamics in terms of the Reynolds tensor applies in the fluid and kinetic regimes, where polarization effects play a major role. The kinetic regime leads to the emergence of a resonant mode at a frequency close to the drift frequency. With the objective of modeling both separate fluid and kinetic regimes of zonal flows, we used in this paper a methodology for deriving both Charney–Hasegawa–Mima (CHM) and Hasegawa–Wakatani models. This methodology is based on the trapped ion model and is analogous to the hierarchy leading from the Vlasov equation to the macroscopic fluid equations. The nature of zonal flows in the hierarchy of the Mima, Hasegawa and Wakatani models is investigated and discussed through comparisons with global kinetic simulations. Applications to the CHM equation are discussed, which applies to a broad variety of hydrodynamical systems, ranging from large-scale processes met in magnetically confined plasma to the so-called zonostrophy turbulence emerging in the case of small-scale forced, two-dimensional barotropic turbulence (Sukoriansky et al. Phys. Rev. Letters, 101, 178501, 2008).

Nuclear structure of bound states of asymmetric dark matter

Models of Asymmetric Dark Matter (ADM) with a sufficiently attractive and long-range force gives rise to stable bound objects, analogous to nuclei in the Standard Model, called nuggets. We study the properties of these nuggets and compute their profiles and binding energies. Our approach, applicable to both elementary and composite fermionic ADM, utilizes relativistic mean field theory, and allows a more systematic computation of nugget properties, over a wider range of sizes and force mediator masses, compared to previous literature. We identify three separate regimes of nugget property behavior corresponding to (1) non-relativistic and (2) relativistic constituents in a Coulomb-like limit, and (3) saturation in an anti-Coulomb limit when the nuggets are large compared to the force range. We provide analytical descriptions for nuggets in each regime. Through numerical calculations, we are able to confirm our analytic descriptions and also obtain smooth transitions for the nugget profiles between all three regimes. We also find that over a wide range of parameter space, the binding energy in the saturation limit is an ${\cal O}(1)$ fraction of the constituent's mass, significantly larger than expectations in the non-relativistic case. In a companion paper, we apply our results to synthesis of ADM nuggets in the early Universe.