a legitimate approach to account for social aspects in environmental governance?

While initially hailed to be the silver bullet for tackling climate change, reducing oil dependency and providing an opportunity for rural development especially in poorer regions, severe criticism concerning the environmental and social performance of bioenergy has been raised recently. One potential solution for this problem that is increasingly discussed now is the certification of bioenergy. In the wake of this discussion, a broad range of certification initiatives emerged during the last years. However, this issue is predominantly debated in terms of the environmental implications. Accordingly, governmental approaches to this issue often neglect the need for including social aspects into sustainability principles and criteria, most prominently here the EU Renewable Energies Directive (RED). Non-state voluntary certification initiatives, by accounting for the social implications of increased bioenergy production, could therefore be seen as complementary governance instruments that are able to fill the void left by state regulations in this respect. After briefly addressing the reasons why state regulations tend to neglect social aspects concerning this matter, this paper seeks to explore whether voluntary bioenergy certification schemes could really be able to fulfill these hopes and provide the solution for the missing consideration of social criteria for sustainable bioenergy. And how could these private non-state initiatives do so in a politically and democratically legitimate way? So as to deal with these issues from a scientific perspective, a distinct analytical framework to evaluate the legitimacy of private governance is presented. Based on this framework, five voluntary bioenergy certification schemes are selected and their consideration given to its social dimension is examined. In order to address the characteristics of our conception of non-state legitimacy, the actor constellations behind these certification initiatives are analyzed with a view to determine the structural representation of social interests. Furthermore, we also give attention to the control and accountability mechanisms incorporated into the certification schemes that are supposed to safeguard the common welfare-orientation of the initiatives. The results of this analysis shed some light on the particular challenges and bottlenecks of ensuring social sustainability via non-state voluntary certification systems in the bioenergy sector. In the concluding chapter, these results are put into perspective and a more general discussion on the potential of non-state voluntary governance approaches regarding the social dimension of environmental governance are presented.early draf

A model of flow and surfactant transport in an oscillatory alveolus partially filled with liquid

The flow and transport in an alveolus are of fundamental importance to partial liquid ventilation, surfactant transport, pulmonary drug administration, cell-cell signaling pathways, and gene therapy. We model the system in which an alveolus is partially filled with liquid in the presence of surfactants. By assuming a circular interface due to sufficiently strong surface tension and small surfactant activity, we combine semianalytical and numerical techniques to solve the Stokes flow and the surfactant transport equations. In the absence of surfactants, there is no steady streaming because of reversibility of Stokes flow. The presence of surfactants, however, induces a nontrivial cycle-averaged surfactant concentration gradient along the interface that generates steady streaming. The steady streaming patterns (e.g., number of vortices) particularly depend on the ratio of inspiration to expiration periods (I:EI:E ratio) and the sorption parameter KK. For an insoluble surfactant, a single vortex is formed when the I:EI:E ratio is either smaller or larger than 1:1, but the recirculations have opposite directions in the two cases. A soluble surfactant can lead to more complex flow patterns such as three vortices or saddle-point flow structures. The estimated unsteady velocity is 10−3 cm/s10−3cm∕s, and the corresponding Péclet number for transporting respiratory gas is O(1)O(1). For a cell-cell signaling molecule such as surfactant-associated protein-A for regulating surfactant secretion, the Péclet number could be O(10)O(10) or higher. Convection is either comparable to or more dominant than diffusion in these processes. The estimated steady velocity ranges from 10−6 to 10−4 cm/s10−6to10−4cm∕s, depending on I:EI:E and KK, and the corresponding steady Péclet number is between 10−8/Dm10−8∕Dm and 10−6/Dm10−6∕Dm (DmDm is the molecular diffusivity with units of cm2/scm2∕s). Therefore, for Dm ⩽ 10−8 cm2/sDm⩽10−8cm2∕s, the convective transport dominates.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87925/2/031510_1.pd

D’Agents: Security in a Multiple-Language, Mobile-Agent System

Abstract. Mobile-agent systems must address three security issues: protecting an individual machine, protecting a group of machines, and protecting an agent. In this chapter, we discuss these three issues in the context of D’Agents, a mobile-agent system whose agents can be written in Tcl, Java and Scheme. (D’Agents was formerly known as Agent Tcl.) First we discuss mechanisms existing in D’Agents for protecting an individual machine: (1) cryptographic authentication of the agent’s owner, (2) resource managers that make policy decisions based on the owner’s identity, and (3) secure execution environments for each language that enforce the decisions of the resource managers. Then we discuss our planned market-based approach for protecting machine groups. Finally we consider several (partial) solutions for protecting an agent from a malicious machine.

Patterns of avoidance: Political questions before international courts

International courts (ICs) have found themselves dealing with issues that are 'political' in nature. This paper discusses the techniques of avoidance ICs have developed to navigate such highly political or sensitive issues. The first part discusses some of the key rationales for avoidance. Drawing on the discussion of the political question doctrine in US constitutional law, it shows how ICs may justify avoidance on both principled and pragmatic grounds. It then discusses the different types of avoidance strategies employed by ICs, based on examples from the Court of Justice of the European Union, the International Court of Justice and the East African Court of Justice. ICs are rarely upfront about avoidance strategies. Rather, ICs tend to avoid cases in a more subtle fashion, relying on procedural rules to exclude a case, or by resolving the dispute in a way that avoids the most politically sensitive questions and controversies

Alien Registration- Hirschl, Jsiolor (Lewiston, Androscoggin County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/22293/thumbnail.jp

Looking Sideways, Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards: Judicial Review vs. Democracy in Comparative Perspective

For the [past] two centuries, the Constitution [has been] as central to American political culture as the New Testament was to medieval Europe. Just as Milton believed that all wisdom is enfolded within the pages of the Bible, all good Americans, from the National Rifle Association to the ACLU, have believed no less of this singular document

Alien Registration Card- Hirschl, Jsiolor (Lewiston, Androscoggin County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_cards/1040/thumbnail.jp