Showing 1681 - 1690 of 2039 Items
Solving which trilemma? The many interpretations of equality, Pareto, and freedom of occupational choice
Date: 2017-08-01
Creator: Kristi A. Olson
Access: Open access
- According to the trilemma claim, we cannot have all three of equality, Pareto, and freedom of occupational choice. In response to the trilemma, John Rawls famously sacrificed equality by introducing incentives. In contrast, GA Cohen and others argued that we can, in fact, have all three provided that individuals are properly motivated by an egalitarian ethos. The incentives debate, then, concerns the plausibility of the ethos solution versus the plausibility of the incentives solution. Considerable ink has been spilled on both sides of the debate. Yet, in this essay, I argue that we cannot have this debate until we clarify the terms. Once we clarify the terms, however, we might discover that there is no debate to be had. This is because, depending on how equality, Pareto, and freedom of occupational choice are interpreted, there might not be a trilemma in the first place. Specifically, I use a small but crucial distinction in how equality, the egalitarian ethos, and Pareto are assessed – what I call the internal/external distinction – to disentangle the various paths each solution – the ethos or incentives – could take. I conclude that both solutions have gained illicit plausibility by virtue of not keeping the distinction straight.
Globalizing extraction and indigenous rights in the russian arctic: The enduring role of the state in natural resource governance
Date: 2019-12-01
Creator: Svetlana A. Tulaeva
Maria S. Tysiachniouk
Laura A. Henry
Leah S. Horowitz
Access: Open access
- The governance of extractive industries has become increasingly globalized. International conventions and multi-stakeholder institutions set out rules and standards on a range of issues, such as environmental protection, human rights, and Indigenous rights. Companies' compliance with these global rules may minimize risks for investors and shareholders, while offering people at sites of extraction more leverage. Although the Russian state retains a significant stake in the oil and gas industries, Russian oil and gas companies have globalized as well, receiving foreign investment, participating in global supply chains, and signing on to global agreements. We investigate how this global engagement has affected Nenets Indigenous communities in Yamal, an oil-and gas-rich region in the Russian Arctic, by analyzing Indigenous protests and benefit-sharing arrangements. Contrary to expectations, we find that Nenets Indigenous communities have not been empowered by international governance measures, and also struggle to use domestic laws to resolve problems. In Russia, the state continues to play a significant role in determining outcomes for Indigenous communities, in part by working with Indigenous associations that are state allies. We conclude that governance generating networks in the region are under-developed.
Mechanical Autonomous Stochastic Heat Engine
Date: 2016-06-28
Creator: Marc Serra-Garcia
André Foehr
Miguel Molerón
Joseph Lydon
Christopher, Chong
Chiara Daraio
Access: Open access
- Stochastic heat engines are devices that generate work from random thermal motion using a small number of highly fluctuating degrees of freedom. Proposals for such devices have existed for more than a century and include the Maxwell demon and the Feynman ratchet. Only recently have they been demonstrated experimentally, using, e.g., thermal cycles implemented in optical traps. However, recent experimental demonstrations of classical stochastic heat engines are nonautonomous, since they require an external control system that prescribes a heating and cooling cycle and consume more energy than they produce. We present a heat engine consisting of three coupled mechanical resonators (two ribbons and a cantilever) subject to a stochastic drive. The engine uses geometric nonlinearities in the resonating ribbons to autonomously convert a random excitation into a low-entropy, nonpassive oscillation of the cantilever. The engine presents the anomalous heat transport property of negative thermal conductivity, consisting in the ability to passively transfer energy from a cold reservoir to a hot reservoir.
Systematic ENSO-driven nutrient variability recorded by central equatorial Pacific corals
Date: 2013-08-16
Creator: Michèle LaVigne
Intan S. Nurhati
Kim M. Cobb
Helen V. McGregor
Daniel, Sinclair
Robert M. Sherrell
Access: Open access
- Variations in ocean productivity are driven largely by nutrient supply to the photic zone, but temporal records of nutrient variability are sparse. Here we show scleractinian coral P/Ca proxy records of variations in phosphate concentrations during El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycles in the central equatorial Pacific. Covarying P/Ca records in Porites corals from Christmas and Fanning Islands show a regional ∼40% decrease during the upwelling relaxation of the 1997-1998 El Niño, consistent with less frequent nutrient measurements from this area. Similar ∼35-45% skeletal P/Ca decreases occur during the 1982-1983 and 1986-1987 El Niño events, which predate satellite color and regional nutrient measurements. After each El Niño event, nutrient increases lag temperature recovery by 4-12 months, likely reflecting uptake by massive phytoplankton blooms that followed resumption of upwelling. The results support the utility of coral P/Ca to probe the mechanisms linking ENSO, equatorial upwelling, and carbon cycling in the past. © 2013. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
All-loop-orders relation between Regge limits of N = 4 SYM and N = 8 supergravity four-point amplitudes
Date: 2021-02-01
Creator: Stephen G. Naculich
Access: Open access
- We examine in detail the structure of the Regge limit of the (nonplanar) N = 4 SYM four-point amplitude. We begin by developing a basis of color factors Cik suitable for the Regge limit of the amplitude at any loop order, and then calculate explicitly the coefficients of the amplitude in that basis through three-loop order using the Regge limit of the full amplitude previously calculated by Henn and Mistlberger. We compute these coefficients exactly at one loop, through O(ϵ 2) at two loops, and through O(ϵ) at three loops, verifying that the IR-divergent pieces are consistent with (the Regge limit of) the expected infrared divergence structure, including a contribution from the three-loop correction to the dipole formula. We also verify consistency with the IR-finite NLL and NNLL predictions of Caron-Huot et al. Finally we use these results to motivate the conjecture of an all-orders relation between one of the coefficients and the Regge limit of the N = 8 supergravity four-point amplitude.
Efficiency of incentives to jointly increase carbon sequestration and species conservation on a landscape
Date: 2008-07-15
Creator: Erik Nelson
Stephen Polasky
David J. Lewis
Andrew J. Plantinga
Eric, Lonsdorf
Denis White
David Bael
Joshua J. Lawler
Access: Open access
- We develop an integrated model to predict private land-use decisions in response to policy incentives designed to increase the provision of carbon sequestration and species conservation across heterogeneous landscapes. Using data from the Willamette Basin, Oregon, we compare the provision of carbon sequestration and species conservation under five simple policies that offer payments for conservation. We evaluate policy performance compared with the maximum feasible combinations of carbon sequestration and species conservation on the landscape for various conservation budgets. None of the conservation payment policies produce increases in carbon sequestration and species conservation that approach the maximum potential gains on the landscape. Our results show that policies aimed at increasing the provision of carbon sequestration do not necessarily increase species conservation and that highly targeted policies do not necessarily do as well as more general policies. © 2008 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA.
KLT-type relations for QCD and bicolor amplitudes from color-factor symmetry
Date: 2018-03-01
Creator: Robert W. Brown
Stephen G. Naculich
Access: Open access
- Color-factor symmetry is used to derive a KLT-type relation for tree-level QCD amplitudes containing gluons and an arbitrary number of massive or massless quark-antiquark pairs, generalizing the expression for Yang-Mills amplitudes originally postulated by Bern, De Freitas, and Wong. An explicit expression is given for all amplitudes with two or fewer quark-antiquark pairs in terms of the (modified) momentum kernel. We also introduce the bicolor scalar theory, the “zeroth copy” of QCD, containing massless biadjoint scalars and massive bifundamental scalars, generalizing the biadjoint scalar theory of Cachazo, He, and Yuan. We derive KLT-type relations for tree-level amplitudes of biadjoint and bicolor theories using the color-factor symmetry possessed by these theories.
Complaint-making as political participation in contemporary Russia
Date: 2012-09-01
Creator: Laura A. Henry
Access: Open access
- Prior to December 2011, instances of widespread collective mobilization were relatively rare in contemporary Russia. Russian citizens are more likely to engage in a different means of airing grievances: making an official complaint to the authorities. This article considers how complaint-making, as a variety of political participation, may contribute either to authoritarian resilience or to political liberalization. The political significance of complaints made to the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Russian Federation is examined. Since it is the broader political context that shapes the significance of complaints, in the absence of meaningful elections individualized appeals to the state are unlikely to promote democratic change, although they may allow for redress of individual rights violations. © 2012 The Regents of the University of California.
Highly nonlinear wave propagation in elastic woodpile periodic structures
Date: 2015-03-17
Creator: E. Kim
F. Li
C. Chong
G. Theocharis
J., Yang
P. G. Kevrekidis
Access: Open access
- In the present work, we experimentally implement, numerically compute with, and theoretically analyze a configuration in the form of a single column woodpile periodic structure. Our main finding is that a Hertzian, locally resonant, woodpile lattice offers a test bed for the formation of genuinely traveling waves composed of a strongly localized solitary wave on top of a small amplitude oscillatory tail. This type of wave, called a nanopteron, is not only motivated theoretically and numerically, but is also visualized experimentally by means of a laser Doppler vibrometer. This system can also be useful for manipulating stress waves at will, for example, to achieve strong attenuation and modulation of high-amplitude impacts without relying on damping in the system.
Maximal stomatal conductance to water and plasticity in stomatal traits differ between native and invasive introduced lineages of Phragmites australis in North America
Date: 2016-01-27
Creator: V. Douhovnikoff
S. H. Taylor
E. L.G. Hazelton
C. M. Smith
J., O'Brien
Access: Open access
- The fitness costs of reproduction by clonal growth can include a limited ability to adapt to environmental and temporal heterogeneity. Paradoxically, some facultatively clonal species are not only able to survive, but colonize, thrive and expand in heterogeneous environments. This is likely due to the capacity for acclimation (sensu stricto) that compensates for the fitness costs and complements the ecological advantages of clonality. Introduced Phragmites australis demonstrates great phenotypic plasticity in response to temperature, nutrient availability, geographic gradient, water depths, habitat fertility, atmospheric CO2, interspecific competition and intraspecific competition for light. However, no in situ comparative subspecies studies have explored the difference in plasticity between the non-invasive native lineage and the highly invasive introduced lineage. Clonality of the native and introduced lineages makes it possible to control for genetic variation, making P. australis a unique system for the comparative study of plasticity. Using previously identified clonal genotypes, we investigated differences in their phenotypic plasticity through measurements of the lengths and densities of stomata on both the abaxial (lower) and adaxial (upper) surfaces of leaves, and synthesized these measurements to estimate impacts on maximum stomatal conductance to water (gwmax). Results demonstrated that at three marsh sites, invasive lineages have consistently greater gwmax than their native congeners, as a result of greater stomatal densities and smaller stomata. Our analysis also suggests that phenotypic plasticity, determined as within-genotype variation in gwmax, of the invasive lineage is similar to, or exceeds, that shown by the native lineage.