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Focusing on the Russia–Ukraine war, this paper investigates natural gas futures volatilities. Applying several hybrid GARCH and EGARCH models, which innovatively incorporate both fat-tailed distribution errors and structural breaks, we derive the following new evidence. First, our hybrid modeling approach is effective in timely capturing the natural gas futures volatility spike when tensions simmered on the Russia–Ukraine border. Second, the hybrid modeling approach is effective for not only GARCH modeling but also EGARCH modeling. Third, the volatility estimates from our hybrid models have predictive power for the volatilities of nonhybrid models. Fourth, the volatility estimates from the nonhybrid models lag behind the volatilities of our hybrid models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During a 3 year examination of object movement tracking in Hosur forest border areas found, different elephant detection methods were used to track the movement. In this paper, problems such as Human–Elephant Conflicts (HEC), poaching and crop raiding were evaluated due to elephant movement. By mapping the elephant movement, it is found that elephant movements were seasonal and used similar paths for movements. In the proposed approach, elephant movement from the forest areas to the nearby villages was mapped and possible mitigation measures to overcome the human elephant conflicts were discussed. A survey observation work is made in Hosur forest areas during 1st April 2020 to 30th June 2020 to understand the elephant movement and spatial distribution. Real time data collection made from the villages around the forest areas, by making field visits. Spatial autocorrelation techniques are used in analyzing the spatial distribution and movement pattern of elephants. ArcGIS software and Getis-Ord Gi* were used to determine the spatial distribution of elephant movement. As a result, it is found that elephant movements were seasonal based such as rainfall decline in other part of forest areas and elephants tends to migrate occasionally. In order to overcome the problems of elephant movement into the human living areas, mitigation measures described has to be implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I present a case of dispute resolution from Pakistan where kinship leaders play a key role in resolving local disputes. Scholars often cite that such practices provide evidence of a failed state. However, I show how these traditional practices elucidate ongoing processes of boundary management. On the one hand, these practices reveal the efforts by non-state leaders to carve out their autonomy by taking on a role traditionally played by the state. In fact, their ability to management local/state boundaries is linked to how they manage boundaries within their communities. The state, in turn, recognizes or legitimates these boundaries when it is politically convenient or allows them to save face. I document such negotiations in my research and show how they are critical to understanding how villagers see the state and vice versa. The Pakistani case is important as the ubiquity of its alternate dispute resolution system problematizes the taken-for-granted status of the state and makes visible the mechanisms by which the boundaries between the state and society are continually negotiated and the implications for the citizen/state relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central task of climate justice is to agree upon a just distribution of the right to emit greenhouse gases. According to the equal per capita shares view, the right to emit should be divided equally between every inhabitant of Earth, since to emit is to use up the resource of atmospheric absorptive capacity, and this is a resource to which no one person has any stronger claim than any other. The fact that a significant proportion of the Earth's ability to absorb and sequester greenhouse gases actually comes not from the atmosphere, but from terrestrial climate sinks that are located within national borders, and that are therefore plausibly subject to legitimate territorial claims, poses a serious challenge to the intuitive egalitarian simplicity of the equal per capita shares view. A defence of this view, then, is tantamount to a defence of the redistribution of terrestrial sink capacity, and therefore must involve either (1) an argument against the legitimacy of territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity, or (2) an argument for why legitimate territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity should nevertheless be ignored in favour of an equal per capita distribution of emissions shares. One strategy for doing so involves applying Charles Beitz's resource redistribution principle to terrestrial sink capacity. Some authors have argued that this strategy will fail due to important differences between the nature of 'conventional' natural resources, and the nature of a resource link climate sink capacity. In this paper, I consider five arguments to this effect that seek to establish the legitimacy of territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity. Respectively, they appeal to attachment, identity, self-determination, improvement and fairness in order to do so. I argue that each one either fails to establish the legitimacy of territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity, or, where they do plausibly establish legitimacy, they do so in a way that renders them vulnerable to type-(2) objections that suggest territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity should nevertheless be ignored. I conclude that, if one is willing to adopt the resource redistribution principle, a just distribution of emissions shares need not respect territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the effect of a municipality being in the "Brazilian border" on its criminality rates, focusing mainly on twin cities and the different arcs. It also identifies determinants of criminality in those municipalities. Firstly, the Propensity Score Matching Method was used to identify the existence of overrepresentation of municipalities in border areas in criminality due to their location and, next, the Spatial Tobit model was applied aiming to identify the determinants of local criminality. Our results showed that, on average, there is no effect of "being in the border" when all the municipalities in border areas and their different arcs are considered. However, when twin cities were analyzed, such effect exists and intensifies the local criminality. Regarding determinants, a difference was found between the municipalities in the Brazilian border and the country as a whole, in which economic advantages were seen to be relevant in the latter context, while the presence of the State reducing social disadvantages is vital to decrease public safety issues in border areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spectral clustering has become very popular in recent years, due to the simplicity of its implementation and good performance in clustering non-convex data. Constructing a similarity graph based on an appropriate distance measure for modeling the local neighborhood relations among data samples is crucial for achieving an acceptable performance in spectral clustering. In this paper, we propose a fuzzy spectral clustering algorithm for poorly separated data with arbitrary shapes. Distinguishing poorly separated clusters is a challenging issue since a border point of a cluster may be more similar to the border points of the adjacent cluster than to the points in its own cluster. We propose a local mean-based distance measure which helps in separating points in cluster borders. The distance between a pair of points, in the proposed distance measure, is defined as the distance between the mean of their k nearest neighbors. We also propose a new transitive-based method for computing the membership degrees of points to clusters. Our evaluation results on both artificial and real data show that both the proposed local mean-based distance measure and the proposed membership computation method have significant impacts in obtaining performance improvement over the existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses developments following the final arbitration ruling from The Hague, issued in July 2016, on the South China Sea dispute between China and the Philippines. It considers the impact on the region of U.S. responses to the ruling and analyzes Washington's interests in the South China Sea: to preserve a rules-based order, support friends and allies, and preserve freedoms of navigation. However, pursuit of these interests can have an adverse impact on relations between the U.S and China, and affect the ability of these major powers to deal with the bigger issues of North Korea and Taiwan. Calls for the Trump Administration to take a stronger stand in the South China Sea in pursuit of these interests have not always been well received in the region. As a consequence, Southeast Asian countries are increasingly hedging against further deterioration in China-U.S. relations. The paper concludes that rather than acting more strongly against China in the South China Sea, there would be benefit in the U.S. taking a more constructive role by supporting current efforts towards better cooperation between the littoral countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This interdisciplinary paper, informed by research and practices in neo-institutional economics, property law and land surveying, is an exploratory account of the boundary as (a) the ontological foundation of private property in land and boundary dispute resolution, and (b) as a pre-contractual condition of any Coasian exchange of rights for planned urban development and space-relevant innovations. Under conditions of positive transaction costs according to the third Coase Theorem, with the help of real-life examples, the paper explains the choice of using the courts, instead of the market, as a means of resolving disputes over land boundaries. It does so in terms of two land surveying and three economic reasons. The surveying reasons are historical and cartographical. The economics reasons relate to the price level of land, the transaction costs of enforcing dispute resolutions and the externalities of land boundary determination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil possesses a long history of violent struggle for land, and its most recent phase is occurring predominantly in the Amazon Basin. Consequently, this paper attempts to territorialize land conflict in the Brazilian Amazon, and in so doing, to illuminate the place-specific intersection of historic social, political, and economic circumstance that created a violent landscape in the so-called ‘South of Pará.’ The paper's premise is that such conflict can be best viewed as resulting from a dialectic between general social processes operating across spatial scales, which create necessary conditions for conflict, and place-specific historical circumstances that transform necessary into sufficient conditions. The paper presents a framework integrating the theory of contentious politics and literatures addressing violence associated with the Amazonian frontier and with resource scarcity (and abundance). The discussion and theoretical application deconstruct the environmental, cognitive, and relational mechanisms that created violence in the South of Pará, and set the stage for the Eldorado dos Carajás massacre in April of 1996. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the conceptualizations of organized crime as both an enterprise and a form of governance, borderland as a spatial category, and borders as institutions, this paper looks at the politics of bordering practices by organized crime in the Colombian-Venezuelan borderlands. It posits that contrary to the common assumptions about transnational organized crime, criminal organizations not only blur or erode the border but rather enforce it to their own benefit. In doing so, these groups set norms to regulate socio-spatial practices, informal and illegal economies, and migration flows, creating overlapping social orders and, lastly, (re)shaping the borderland. Theoretically, the analysis brings together insights from political geography, border studies, and organized crime literature, while empirically, it draws on direct observation, criminal justice data, and in-depth interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Pacific is well known for producing tsunamis, and events such as the 2011 Tōhoku-oki, Japan disaster demonstrate the vulnerability of coastal communities. We review what is known about the current state of tsunami risk management for Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs), identify the issues and challenges associated with affecting meaningful tsunami disaster risk reduction (DRR) efforts and outline strategies and possible ways forward. Small island states are scattered across the vast Pacific region and these states have to varying degrees been affected by not only large tsunamis originating in circum-Pacific subduction zones, but also more regionally devastating events. Having outlined and described what is meant by the risk management process, the various problems associated with our current understanding of this process are examined. The poorly understood hazard related to local, regional and distant sources is investigated and the dominant focus on seismic events at the expense of other tsunami source types is noted. We reflect on the challenges of undertaking numerical modelling from generation to inundation and specifically detail the problems as they relate to PICTs. This is followed by an exploration of the challenges associated with mapping exposure and estimating vulnerability in low-lying coastal areas. The latter part of the paper is devoted to exploring what mitigation of the tsunami risk can look like and draw upon good practice cases as exemplars of the actions that can be taken from the local to regional level. Importantly, given the diversity of PICTs, no one approach will suit all places. The paper closes by making a series of recommendations to assist PICTs and the wider tsunami research community in thinking through improvements to their tsunami risk management processes and the research that can underpin these efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies secessions as the outcome of conflict between regions. We study under what conditions regions will divert costly resources to fight each other over political borders. We derive the probability of secession and the amount of resources diverted to separatist conflict, and show how those variables depend on factors such as heterogeneity costs, economies of scale, relative size, and external threats. We also model civil conflict over types of government, after borders have been determined, and study how this political conflict affects the incentives to secede. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to engage constructively with literature on armed conflict and resources in order to draw attention both to assumptions that hinder a more accurate or useful understanding of natural resources and their role in territorial conflict as well as to aspects of this field of research that merit further work. In much of the literature on resource conflict, territorial aspects are either implicitly or explicitly tied to resource conflict largely through the assumption that the value of territory is intrinsic. Little of the literature attempts to advance theory, specifically, either on the particular role of resources or on the meaning and objectives of conflict beyond a one-dimensional objective of maintaining or securing control of territory. The paper considers themes of resource scarcity and resource abundance in conflict. A third section focuses on an analysis both of natural resource databases and of conflict databases (both international and civil) which emphasizes problematic results of blending these databases to demonstrate correlations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boundaries can be seen as barriers or as places of contact. It has been suggested that we are ‘prisoners of borders’, of all kinds of borders (political, religious, social, cultural, linguistic etc.). While this statement appears to be somewhat exaggerated, it holds some truth. Boundaries are elements in spatial organization, and they influence daily life in many ways (not only for people living right along them). The paper addresses the question if we must call ourselves ‘prisoners’ or if we simply have to live with all kinds of borders. Departing from theoretical observations, the paper discusses the various aspects boundaries assume in the European context before looking at a few concrete Swiss examples. They reveal that even regions at a certain distance of the state border will feel its effects (the case of Zurich airport), but the most important benefit can been drawn by people living in the border area itself (through price differences between the two countries, as exemplified by the Swiss-Italian border). There may be asymmetry on state borders, but this asymmetry can also swing around: the advantages often lie on both sides. The paper concludes by pointing to the persistence of the boundary concept. They are a necessity for the organization of space and society, but they are not absolute. There are always holes in these prison walls, and the examples where boundaries were impermeable are probably rare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract. This paper analyses the policy implications of territorial competition; that is the promotion of local economic development in competition with other territories. It does so both in analytical and empirical terms moving from a wider supranational and analytical standpoint to a more practical and local one. The impact of territorial competition in welfare terms depends critically on the perspective adopted. Some policies are pure waste even from the point of view of the initiating territory. Other policies may have a positive impact in economic welfare terms, viewed from the perspective of the territory, but be zero sum from a wider perspective. The may also be policies, however, which increase economic welfare, both locally and from a wider perspective. This suggests that there is a case for providing a supranational regulatory framework. The empirical section first examines the evidence as to whether local policies for economic growth do, in fact, have any impact. The paper concludes with an examination of the actual policies pursued in a sample of European regions and draws out some conclusions for local policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) leverage data and knowledge about a problem. They provide a nonnumerical pathway to solving partial differential equations by expressing the field solution as an artificial neural network. This approach has been applied successfully to various types of differential equations. A major area of research on PINNs is the application to coupled partial differential equations in particular, and a general breakthrough is still lacking. In coupled equations, the optimization operates in a critical conflict between boundary conditions and the underlying equations, which often requires either many iterations or complex schemes to avoid trivial solutions and to achieve convergence. We provide empirical evidence for the mitigation of bad initial conditioning in PINNs for solving one-dimensional consolidation problems of porous media through the introduction of affine transformations after the classical output layer of artificial neural network architectures, effectively accelerating the training process. These affine physics-informed neural networks (AfPINNs) then produce nontrivial and accurate field solutions even in parameter spaces with diverging orders of magnitude. On average, AfPINNs show the ability to improve the L 2 relative error by 64.84 % after 25,000 epochs for a one-dimensional consolidation problem based on Biot's theory, and an average improvement by 58.80 % with a transfer approach to the theory of porous media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An armed conflict between Taiwan and China is not unthinkable in the future. For historical, geographical, economic, and diplomatic reasons, Japan would not be able to stand on the sidelines. Relying on three major concepts—national interests, path dependence and balance of power, this paper explores Japan's three possible roles in the event of a cross-Strait conflict. First, Japan could pass the buck, staying out of the conflict as much as possible and providing at most logistical and intelligence support for an American military operation. Second, it could balance power, throwing its weight behind Washington against Beijing. Finally, it could play peacemaker. At the end of the article, the author discusses several key factors that would shape Tokyo's decision-making in the event of a cross-Strait conflict and assesses the relative probability of each option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conflicts over territory have resulted in innumerable wars and other violent incidents, but the reasons that some territory is more highly valued or volatile than other areas may not be obvious. This paper demonstrates a taxonomy for analyzing international territorial disputes that seeks to capture their tangible and symbolic dimensions and to weigh them as the international community might. Twenty-six territorial disputes, including offshore areas and separatist issues, were examined and scored according to 15 criteria for objective prominence and 7 criteria related to how a country might view the dispute in terms of its national interest. The taxonomy used Saaty's Analytic Hierarchy Process to identify tangible and intangible properties, measure their interrelations, and produce intermediate and overall ranks. Each dispute was evaluated for prominence by examining intensifying (symbolic) factors, measures of magnitude, and characteristics that retard resolution. The magnitude of a dispute was judged to contribute the most to overall prominence, having twice the weight of the other two factors. The top five disputes in terms of prominence were the Kurdish issue, Kashmir, Tibet, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Xinjiang. The second hierarchy evaluated the disputes from the perspective of an international actor, in this case the United States. When judged by U.S. national interest, the most important factors were the deployment of U.S. forces in the claimant countries and if one of the claimants were a U.S. ally. Finally, the results from the two hierarchies were compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at border relations between Thais and Cambodians over the last thirty years, in the context of the developing Thai polity and economy. It considers the salience of both ethnicity and nationality in shaping Thai interactions with Khmers. It suggests that as the threat of violent regional conflict diminished, the shared border came to represent important economic opportunities for both Thais and Cambodians. However, rhetorics of “national interest” and “regional development” notwithstanding, the beneficiaries of this transnational trade are neither nation nor state, but specific interest groups working through the structures of government and military on both sides of the border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upper Karabakh region has become a permanent point of conflict between the Republic of Azerbaijan and Armenia with the weakening and collapse of the Russian Empire in the early twentieth century and the formation of new borders, especially during the Soviet era. With the appearance of signs of the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, the Armenians of Upper Karabakh expressed their desire to join Armenia and renounce the citizenship of the independent Republic of Azerbaijan. This conflict resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union has led to two periods of war between the Republic of Azerbaijan and Armenia. In these wars, parts of the mountainous lands of Karabakh, which are the source of parts of the waters of Upper Karabakh, the Republic of Azerbaijan and Armenia, have also been handed over. Karabakh's water resources have always been emphasized by officials on both sides, and this shows the hydropolitical importance of Upper Karabakh and its surrounding districts. In this article in a descriptive-analytical way, by studying the situation of water resources and structures in the region, the hydropolitics of Upper Karabakh is studied with emphasis on the results of the mentioned conflicts and wars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Riemann's Rearrangement Theorem, Øystein Linnebo (2020) argues that, if it were possible to apply an infinite positive weight and an infinite negative weight to a working scale, the resulting net weight could end up being any real number, depending on the procedure by which these weights are applied. Appealing to the First Postulate of Archimedes' treatise on balance, I argue instead that the scale would always read 0 kg. Along the way, we stop to consider an infinitely jittery flea, an infinitely protracted border conflict, and an infinitely electric glass rod. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to examine the long-run asymmetric impact of energy productivity on environmental quality in Ireland. The data set covers the period from 1990Q1 to 2019Q4. Although the border issue has been the source of contention and terrorism for decades in Ireland, the country is conscious of modern innovations and has a coherent body of environmental law. Ireland's goal is to achieve 80% of its electricity as renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions by 51% in 2030. Unlike earlier studies, the novelty of this study lies in the thorough analysis of how energy productivity affects the quality of the environment in Ireland while controlling for financial development, primary energy consumption, and economic growth utilizing the nonlinear ARDL approach and other robust econometric techniques. Precisely, the results indicate that (i) energy productivity benefits the environment by lowering CO2 emissions (CO2E) in the long term; (ii) financial sector development enhances the quality of the environment in Ireland; (iii) increase in primary energy consumption and economic growth without eco-friendly protocols propel an increase in CO2E. These findings support the economic theory that energy productivity can stimulate steady green living and green technological growth. We recommend that policymakers in Ireland invest in energy productivity and prioritize R&D that embraces cleaner technologies and cross-cutting eco-friendly policies to combat environmental challenges in Ireland and the world at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes how the structural factor of asymmetry affects China's relations with a small power. As the studies of Brantly Womack suggest, asymmetry theory is conducive to deepening the understanding of China's relations with smaller countries. We argue that an examination of China–Philippines relations from 2010 to 2020 indicates that Beijing has trouble managing its ties with Manila because of the asymmetry in the nature of the relations, which originates in the power and status gaps between them. The asymmetrical structure of this bilateral interplay inclines China to underestimate and neglect the Philippines' intentions and determination to resist, which has been made especially clear in the South China Sea disputes. As a result, their relationship experienced repeated ups and downs throughout the 2010s, in particular over the maritime sovereignty issue. This study also hints at the complicated situations surrounding China where many medium-sized and small states attempt to maneuver among great powers. Without affinities with such governments in the Indo-Pacific region, it will be difficult for Beijing to achieve a peaceful rise and acquire status as a next-generation superpower. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of so-called "hardline policies" against criminal groups (persecution, militarization, strengthening of security apparatuses), we take a comprehensive approach to the study of violent territorial disputes. We offer features for studying the violence attributed to organized crime, particularly in Mexico from 2007 to 2011, a time known as the "War on Drugs"; we identify characteristics of the drug-related criminal organizations in Mexico; further we show different strategies for the use of and dispute for territory. We propose four components that give us a better understanding of organized-crime groups: economic activities, ability to negotiate with other cartels, relations with state authorities, and strength of local roots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For analyzing conflict between two large open countries over external territories rich in natural resources, we develop a game-theoretic model of trade under resource appropriation possibilities. We show that greater trade openness (by lowering trade costs) reduces the overall intensity of arming when the adversary countries are symmetric in all dimensions. This finding is consistent with the liberal peace hypothesis that trade reduces conflict. We further analyze how equilibrium is affected by differences in national resource endowments. The resulting asymmetric equilibrium reveals that arming by the more endowed country exceeds that of the less endowed country and the two adversaries respond to lower trade costs differently: the more endowed country cuts back on its arming, whereas the less endowed country may increase it. Under resource endowment asymmetry, the aggregate arming allocations of the adversaries could increase despite greater trade openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the establishment of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) in 2010, a new collective actor entered the European asylum policy arena. Although the agency commands limited financial and personnel resources, and has no formal powers to directly interfere in the decision-making practices of asylum authorities across Europe, its mandate and reach of influence are a subject of recurrent dispute. We consider the struggles surrounding the EASO’s role and position as manifestations of enduring conflicts of recognition, valuation and distribution in a Europeanised asylum administrative field. By analysing civil servants’ position-takings vis-à-vis the EASO, we demonstrate that officials from a variety of member states are united by a shared belief in disinterested, apolitical bureaucratic rules of procedure, based on a notion of ‘expertise’ that transcends national boundaries and supersedes national concerns. At the same time, the discursive boundary work invested by the interviewees draws on spatial, temporal and procedural categories of differentiation, highlighting complex processes of ongoing relational positionings and practices of distinction. The corresponding hierarchies and inequalities are further indications of a transnational administrative field with its own principles of valuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though the United States has not ratified UNCLOS, U.S. oceans policies and practices are inextricably linked to UNCLOS. For this reason, the United States needs to approach its future relations with China through the lens of UNCLOS and the recent Arbitration decision involving its claims in the South China Sea. The decision cannot be dismissed as something which is an insignificant technical legal disagreement. The Arbitration concretely addresses core resource, environmental and the entitlements to oceans territory in the South China Sea and the precedent impacts other disputes that could, if not resolved, become security flashpoints which will impact U.S. economic or military interests. The decision also confronts recent legal revisionism by China; a party to UNCLOS since 1996. China's continuing rejection of the decision will, in the long run, cause the decline of international law and cast doubt on whether the U.S., and other developed countries, can expect to have a rules- based order to govern their security and economic affairs if the decision is not respected by world's second most powerful country. For this reason, it is in the United States interest to make China's compliance with the Arbitration decision a central tenant of U.S. China Policy and, in doing so, persuade China that it has much to gain from a rules-based order at sea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many arguments against naïve realism are arguments against its corollary: disjunctivism. But there is a simpler argument-due to Mehta (J Philos 111:311-331, 2014)-that targets naïve realism directly. In broad strokes, the argument is the following. There are certain experiences that are, allegedly, in no way phenomenally similar. Nevertheless, naïve realism predicts that they are phenomenally similar. Hence, naïve realism is false. Mehta and Ganson (Philos Stud, 2016) successfully defend this argument from an objection raised by French and Gomes (Philos Stud 173(2):451-460, 2016). However, all parties to this dispute have missed the real problem with Mehta's argument. As I see it, the real problem is twofold. First, despite his claims to the contrary, the experiences Mehta cites are phenomenally similar. Moreover, finding experiences that are in no way phenomenally similar turns out to be a difficult task. Second, there are motivated versions of naïve realism that are immune to Mehta's argument. The upshot is that even if Mehta's argument is sound, the most that it can show is that one version of naïve realism is false. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wake characteristics of a wind turbine in a turbulent boundary layer under neutral stratification are investigated systematically by means of large-eddy simulations. A methodology to maintain the turbulence of the background flow for simulations with open horizontal boundaries, without the necessity of the permanent import of turbulence data from a precursor simulation, was implemented in the geophysical flow solver EULAG. These requirements are fulfilled by applying the spectral energy distribution of a neutral boundary layer in the wind-turbine simulations. A detailed analysis of the wake response towards different turbulence levels of the background flow results in a more rapid recovery of the wake for a higher level of turbulence. A modified version of the Rankine-Froude actuator disc model and the blade element momentum method are tested as wind-turbine parametrizations resulting in a strong dependence of the near-wake wind field on the parametrization, whereas the far-wake flow is fairly insensitive to it. The wake characteristics are influenced by the two considered airfoils in the blade element momentum method up to a streamwise distance of 14 D ( D = rotor diameter). In addition, the swirl induced by the rotation has an impact on the velocity field of the wind turbine even in the far wake. Further, a wake response study reveals a considerable effect of different subgrid-scale closure models on the streamwise turbulent intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of the most active and most dangerous security challenges in the Asia-Pacific region are generally seen to involve a complex amalgam of material and ideational conflicts. There is surprisingly little consideration, however, of the role of the justice motive. This article explores the role of the justice motive in the context of three specific maritime and territorial disputes: Dokdo/Takeshima, the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, and the South China Sea. What explains its intensity? How does it affect political salience, tractability, and danger of conflict? What are the available mechanisms and prospects for resolving justice conflicts? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assumes that the EU can contribute to a constructive transformation of regional conflicts in the South China Sea. To prove this assumption, the author investigates the process of the EU's influence inside and outside the regional cooperation and integration frameworks and also examines three different pathways of influence on regional integration and conflict transformation, i.e., compulsion, social learning and changing context, and model-setting effects. The South China Sea case illustrates that the current frameworks of regional cooperation and integration in East Asia are not likely to offer possible solutions to manage the present regional security threats. Even though the EU is hardly a determinant actor at the moment, the author concludes that a long-term prospect of spillover effects through growing economic interdependence, coupled with a certain level of social learning, may legitimize further interaction and thus the EU could have a positive role to play in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the several chances of agreement, Japan and Russia have failed to solve the dispute over the Northern Territories/South Kuril Islands. The 1956 model seems to be the most plausible method, but the lack of political coherence of the central politics and the will of negotiation became the factors that hinder the two countries from reaching an agreement. By reviewing the conflicting footprints and strategies of the two countries, the authors argue that the more democratized and diffused a political system is, the more difficult it is to come to an agreement in negotiations. This intensifies the existing theory of foreign policy decision-making process emphasizing the influence of domestic constituents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the causal associations between domestic Japan's socio-psychological indices and people's perceptions toward territorial disputes with China and South Korea. The triangulation analyses do not support most of the hypotheses except the explanatory variables of age, level of educational attainment, and Japan's future projection: The higher the age group, the stronger the territorial sovereignty conviction; the higher the level of education, the weaker the support for the Japanese government's hawkish policy; and the more pessimistic the future confidence of Japan, the bigger the threat perception of China. The causality could be established only when the probability level was relaxed from 0.05 to 0.10. This research finds a weak overall causal association between domestic state of affairs and territorial perceptions. The public opinion on territorial claims remains more or less the same largely independent of domestic socio-economic conditions. This observation leads to a call to revise the conventional conflict cycle theory (i.e., status quo > provocation > rise of tension > conflict relaxation) in order to reflect more of simultaneous and interactive nature of inter-state conflict (i.e., action [tension/status quo/reconciliation] > reaction [tension/status quo/reconciliation]). The intra-state affairs have become more vulnerable to unexpected and hard-to-control contingencies which defy the procedural progression of conflict management. This implies that the elites can no longer monopolize the decision on foreign affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent developments in spatial analysis and spatial data have allowed researchers to investigate various geographical factors in the quantitative analysis of conflict and war (Ward in Polit Geogr 21(2):155-158, ). Despite the importance of territory in interstate conflict, there has been a limited interest in the application of spatial analysis to the study of territorial conflict. Using geographically weighted regression (GWR) we evaluated the existing explanations of territorial conflict provided by a global scale analysis that assumes a spatial consistency in the explanatory variables. Specifically, we revisited Paul Huth's foundational work by using GWR to examine the spatial pattern in the sign and significance of the variables. The result of GWR shows that the escalation of territorial conflict cannot be fully explained by one universal model. There is a high level of spatial variation in the regression parameters and the explanatory power of the model varies over space. A k-means cluster analysis was implemented for a further investigation of the regional pattern of the underlying causes of territorial disputes. The result of our GWR suggests the necessity and possibility to pursue a local or regional scale approach to the study of territorial conflict, an approach that challenges an epistemology of seeking a single explanation for the causes of conflict that neglects regional context. The spatial heterogeneity in the causes of territorial conflict escalation we find is framed within a narrative of the intertwined processes of colonialism, Cold War legacies, and competition for resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the definition of life? Artificial life environments provide an interesting test case for this classical question. Understanding what such systems can tell us about biological life requires negotiating the tricky conceptual boundary between virtual and real life forms. Drawing from Wittgenstein's analysis of the concept of a game and a Darwinian insight about classification, I argue that classifying life involves both causal and pragmatic elements. Rather than searching for a single, sharp definition, these considerations suggest that life is a cluster concept with fuzzy boundaries and that there are multiple legitimate ways to make the notion precise for different scientific purposes. This pluralist, realist account avoids unnecessary border disputes by emphasizing how science negotiates such questions in relation to theory and evidence. I also discuss several objections to this approach, including a 'moral hesitation' some have to allowing broader application of the concept of life to include artificial life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at highlighting two 'special' transatlantic relationships whose cultivation resulted from Theodore Roosevelt's personal diplomacy. One of them was between America and Britain - the celebrated 'special relationship' par excellence - and the other - the lesser-known one - was between America and France. The latter bilateral rapport was by far the most satisfying one for Roosevelt as the outcome of personal ties; it rested on a fascinating character, France's ambassador to Washington, Jean Jules Jusserand, who assisted America's 26th president on both sides of the Atlantic through his contacts in France and Britain. Transatlantica, which would owe a lot to Roosevelt's cosmopolitanism, was then in the making, paradoxically marked in its incipient stage by Anglo-American bickering over the Alaska boundary and US honeymooning with the French. The Gallic factor, thanks to Jusserand, would bring about diplomatic cooperation and harmony between America and France throughout Roosevelt's major foreign policy initiatives, three of which are singled out in this essay: the second Venezuelan crisis, the Russo-Japanese war, and the Moroccan crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 11 July 2002 a dozen Moroccan armed police occupied Parsley Island, a rocky outcrop off the north Moroccan coast. Five days later Spanish armed forces intervened to 'liberate' the island and repatriated the Moroccans. On 20 July, following the intervention of US Secretary of State Colin Powell, the State Department drew up an agreement acceptable to both sides and Spain withdrew. This article examines why Morocco occupied the island, why Spain used force in reply and why the US became involved. As with many territorial disputes, the occupation and the responses to it were symptomatic of more deep-seated grievances between the disputants, while the involvement of the Bush administration was inspired by its own self-interest in the aftermath of 9/11. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]