Reinventing oversight in the twenty-first century: the question of capacity

This article addresses a key question emerging from this project based at the University of Minnesota: the fundamental capacity of government to engage in “dynamic oversight” of emergent technologies. This conception of oversight requires additional or new types of capacity for government agencies that must arbitrate conflicts and endow any outcomes with necessary democratic legitimacy. Rethinking oversight thus also requires consideration of the fundamental design and organizational capacity of the regulatory regime in the democratic state.     

Dynamic oversight: implementation gaps and challenges

Nanotechnology is touted as a transformative technology in that it is predicted to improve many aspects of human life. There are hundreds of products in the market that utilize nanostructures in their design, such as composite materials made out of carbon or metal oxides. Potential risks to consumers, to the environment, and to workers from the most common passive nanomaterial—carbon nanotubes—are emerging through scientific research. Newer more active nanostructures—such as cancer therapies and targeted drug systems—are also increasing in use and are raising similar risk concerns. Governing the risks to workers is the subject of this commentary. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 grants the Occupational Safety and Health Administration the legal authority to set occupational health standards to insure that no worker suffers material impairment of health from work. However, setting a standard to protect workers from nanotechnology risks may occur some time in the future because the risks to workers have not been well characterized scientifically. Alternative risk governances—such as dynamic oversight through stakeholder partnerships, “soft law” approaches, and national adoption of international consensus standards—are evaluated in this article.     

Designing oversight for nanomedicine research in human subjects: systematic analysis of exceptional oversight for emerging technologies

The basic procedures and rules for oversight of U.S. human subjects research have been in place since 1981. Certain types of human subjects research, however, have provoked creation of additional mechanisms and rules beyond the Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) Common Rule and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) equivalent. Now another emerging domain of human subjects research—nanomedicine—is prompting calls for extra oversight. However, in 30 years of overseeing research on human beings, we have yet to specify what makes a domain of scientific research warrant extra oversight. This failure to systematically evaluate the need for extra measures, the type of extra measures appropriate for different challenges, and the usefulness of those measures hampers efforts to respond appropriately to emerging science such as nanomedicine. This article evaluates the history of extra oversight, extracting lessons for oversight of nanomedicine research in human beings. We argue that a confluence of factors supports the need for extra oversight, including heightened uncertainty regarding risks, fast-evolving science yielding complex and increasingly active materials, likelihood of research on vulnerable participants including cancer patients, and potential risks to others beyond the research participant. We suggest the essential elements of the extra oversight needed.     

Governing nanobiotechnology: lessons from agricultural biotechnology regulation

This article uses lessons from biotechnology to help inform the design of oversight for nanobiotechnology. Those lessons suggest the following: first, oversight needs to be broadly defined, encompassing not just regulatory findings around safety and efficacy, but also public understanding and acceptance of the technology and its products. Second, the intensity of scrutiny and review should reflect not just risks but also perceptions of risk. Finally, a global marketplace argues for uniform standards or commercially practical solutions to differences in standards. One way of designing oversight to achieve these purposes is to think about it in three phases—precaution, prudence, and promotion. Precaution comes early in the technology or product’s development and reflects real and perceived uncertainties. Prudence governs when risks and hazards have been identified, containment approaches established, and benefits broadly defined. Transparency and public participation rise to the fore. The promotional phase moves toward shaping public understanding and acceptance and involves marketing issues rather than safety ones. This flexible, three-phase approach to oversight would have avoided some of the early regulatory problems with agricultural biotechnology. It also would have led to a more risk-adjusted pathway to regulatory approval. Furthermore, it would avoid some of the arbitrary, disruptive marketing issues that have arisen.     

Development of carbon-carbon nozzle extension for liquid fuel rocket motors

Successful experience of RSC “Energy” and SPA “Iskra” in the development of carbon-carbon extension for oxygen-kerosene liquid fuel rocket motor has been summarized. Methodological approach that served to completion of carbon-carbon extension development in full and at comparatively small expenses has been described. Results of practical application of carbon-carbon extension for liquid fuel rocket motor 11D58M have been presented within the framework of International Space Program “Sea Launch”.     

Theory of the sommerfeld fine-structure constant

The value of the “bare” fine-structure constant α₀ is calculated within the framework of a new approach to the problem of elementary particles. Khar'kov Physics and Technology Institute. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 10. pp. 60–63, October, 1997.     

Horses for courses: risk information and decision making in the regulation of nanomaterials

Despite the widespread commercial use of nanomaterials, regulators currently have a limited ability to characterize and manage risks. There is a paucity of data available on the current production and use of nanomaterials and extreme scientific uncertainty on most aspects of the risk assessment “causal chain.” Regulatory decisions will need to be made in the near-term in the absence formal quantitative risk assessments. The article draws on examples from three different regulatory contexts—baseline data monitoring efforts of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and California Department of Toxic Substances Control, prioritization of risk information in the context of environmental releases, and mitigation of occupational risks—to argue for the use of decision-analytic tools in lieu of formal risk assessment to help regulatory bodies. We advocate a “horses for courses” approach whereby existing analytical tools (such as risk ranking, multi-criteria decision analysis, and “control banding” approaches) might be adapted to regulators’ goals in particular decision contexts. While efforts to build new and modify existing tools are underway, they need greater support from funding and regulatory agencies because innovative approaches are needed for the “extreme” uncertainty problems that nanomaterials pose.     

Paradoxes of neutrino oscillations

Despite the theory of neutrino oscillations being rather old, some of its basic issues are still being debated in the literature. We discuss a number of such issues, including the relevance of the “same energy” and “same momentum” assumptions, the role of quantum-mechanical uncertainty relations in neutrino oscillations, the dependence of the coherence and localization conditions that ensure the observability of neutrino oscillations on neutrino energy and momentum uncertainties, the question of (in)dependence of the oscillation probabilities on the neutrino production and detection processes, and the applicability limits of the stationary-source approximation. We also develop a novel approach to calculation of the oscillation probability in the wave-packet approach, based on the summation/integration conventions different from the standard one, which allows a new insight into the “same energy” vs. “same momentum” problem. We also discuss a number of apparently paradoxical features of the theory of neutrino oscillations. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

Role models for complex networks

We present a framework for automatically decomposing (“block-modeling”) the functional classes of agents within a complex network. These classes are represented by the nodes of an image graph (“block model”) depicting the main patterns of connectivity and thus functional roles in the network. Using a first principles approach, we derive a measure for the fit of a network to any given image graph allowing objective hypothesis testing. From the properties of an optimal fit, we derive how to find the best fitting image graph directly from the network and present a criterion to avoid overfitting. The method can handle both two-mode and one-mode data, directed and undirected as well as weighted networks and allows for different types of links to be dealt with simultaneously. It is non-parametric and computationally efficient. The concepts of structural equivalence and modularity are found as special cases of our approach. We apply our method to the world trade network and analyze the roles individual countries play in the global economy.     

Operation Features of the Electronic Circuit of the Warm Liquid Tetramethylsilane (TMS) Detector

It is urgent to use a “warm liquid” TMS in large massive calorimeters (with a volume of several hundred liters). This direction in modern nuclear physics is referred to as “non-accelerator” experiments with low-background detectors. Such experiments are associated with the solution of most important problems to understand the Universe structure and search for new particles. These are the well-known problems for searching “dark matter” in the form of new weakly interacting particles, i.e., wimps, observations of coherent scattering of reactor neutrinos. Using this experiment, the standard model of electroweak interactions can be tested. The fully developed fabrication technology of large amounts of “warm liquid” ТМS (in collaboration with the State Research Institute of Chemistry and Technology of Organoelement Compounds) makes it possible to perform such experiments.     

Map Lattices Coupled by Collisions

We introduce a new coupled map lattice model in which the weak interaction takes place via rare “collisions”. By “collision” we mean a strong (possibly discontinuous) change in the system. For such models we prove uniqueness of the SRB measure and exponential space-time decay of correlations.     

“Elastic” fluctuation-induced effects in smectic wetting films

The Li-Kardar field theory approach is generalized to wetting smectic films and the “elastic” fluctuation-induced interaction is obtained between the external flat bounding surface and distorted IA (isotropic liquid-smectic A) interface acting as an “internal” (bulk) boundary of the wetting smectic film under the assumption that the IA interface is essentially “softer” than the surface smectic layer. This field theory approach allows calculating the fluctuation-induced corrections in Hamiltonians of the so-called “correlated” liquids confined by two surfaces, in the case where one of the bounding surfaces is “rough” and with different types of surface smectic layer anchoring. We obtain that in practice, the account of thermal displacements of the smectic layers in a wetting smectic film reduces to the addition of two contributions to the IA interface Hamiltonian. The first, so-called local contribution describes the long-range thermal “elastic” repulsion of the fluctuating IA interface from the flat bounding surface. The second, so-called nonlocal contribution is connected with the occurrence of an “elastic” fluctuation-induced correction to the stiffness of the IA interface. An analytic expression for this correction is obtained.     

Estimation of validity of nonlinear models for pressure-strain rate correlations in turbulent flow

Simple inequalities obtained from the spectral representation of pressure-strain-rate correlations are used for analyzing nonlinear (in anisotropy parameter and mean strain rate) models of these correlations. These inequalities can be treated as a new criterion of the validity of the models relative to the known realizability conditions. It is shown in particular that the requirements following from this criterion are not met in the entire physically accessible domain even for models automatically satisfying the “strong realizability” conditions. In many cases, violations are observed at a high, but not exotic, degree of anisotropy corresponding, for example, to the wall regions of a flow in a channel. On the other hand, the new criterion turns out to be constructive in model “calibration.” In particular, some simple constraints on the values of constants are obtained for some types of models proceeding from the conditions of the fulfillment of this criterion.     

\mathcal{A} -invariance: An Axiomatic Approach to Quantum Relativity

The sort of approach claimed by the title of this article is realizable, at least, within the framework of ADG where we do not assume any “spacetime” supplying the dynamics we employ. The latter classical type of argument can naturally be included herewith along with its concomitant impediments that are emanated therefrom and are essentially “absorbed”, technically speaking, by the proposed mechanism. So our approach, being “manifoldless” (thence, no smoothness, in the standard sense) does not contain any such issue, as before, according to the very definitions, being thus “singularities”-free. As a consequence, the equations that one would be able to formulate within the present set-up will be, by the very essence of the matter, already the quantized ones. Dedicated to Professor Rafael D. Sorkin on the occasion of his 60th birthday with much friendship and recognition of his creative pursuit in theoretical physics.     

Prospects for transmutation of nuclear waste and associated proton-accelerator technology

While a considerable and world-wide growth of the nuclear share in the global energy mix is desirable for many reasons, a major concern or objection is the long-term burden that is constituted by the radiotoxic waste from the spent fuel. The concept of Partitioning & Transmutation, a scientific and technological answer, is therefore of high interest. Its deployment may use dedicated “Transmuter” or “Burner” reactors, using a fast neutron spectrum. For the transmutation of waste with a large content (up to 50%) of (very long-lived) Minor Actinides, a sub-critical reactor, using an external neutron source is a solution of high interest. It is constituted by coupling a proton accelerator, a spallation target and a subcritical core. This promising new technology is named ADS, for accelerator-driven system. The present paper aims at an introduction into the field in order to focus, in its later part, on the development of the required accelerator technology.     

Influence of the grain size on the resistance of micro- and nanocrystalline metals against the neck-like localization of plastic deformation

The “high strength-low plasticity resource” dilemma associated with the macrolocalization of plastic deformation in the form of a neck in a stretched specimen, which leads to ductile failure of the specimen, has been theoretically discussed in the framework of the dislocation-kinetic approach. It has been quantitatively demonstrated using micro- and nanocrystalline metals as an example that their low plasticity resource (a small value of uniform strain before the beginning of the neck formation) and quasi-embrittlement result from the strong increase in the yield strength with a decrease in the grain size and the strain-hardening coefficient due to the annihilation of dislocations in the boundaries and bulk of grains.     

His majesty the spin and the youngest princess μSR

The purpose of this talk is to replace μSR into the general framework of what I shall term “Spin spectroscopy” and more specifically: “Resonance spin spectroscopy”.     

Forks in the road, on the way to quantum gravity

In seeking to arrive at a theory of “quantum gravity,” one faces several choices among alternative approaches. I list some of these “forks in the road” and offer reasons for taking one alternative over the other. In particular, I advocate the following: the sum-over-histories framework for quantum dynamics over the “observable and state-vector” framework; relative probabilities over absolute ones; spacetime over space as the gravitational “substance” (4 over 3+1); a Lorentzian metric over a Riemannian (“Euclidean”) one; a dynamical topology over an absolute one; degenerate metrics over closed timelike curves to mediate topology change; “unimodular gravity” over the unrestricted functional integral; and taking a discrete underlying structure (the causal set) rather than the differentiable manifold as the basis of the theory. In connection with these choices, I also mention some results from unimodular quantum cosmology, sketch an account of the origin of black hole entropy, summarize an argument that the quantum mechanical measurement scheme breaks down for quantum field theory, and offer a reason why the cosmological constant of the present epoch might have a magnitude of around 10⁻¹²⁰ in natural units. This paper is the text of a talk given at the symposium on Directions in General Relativity held at the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, in May 1993 in honor of Dieter Brill and Charles Minser.     

Notoph gauge theory: Superfield formalism

We derive absolutely anticommuting Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST) and anti-BRST symmetry transformations for the 4D free Abelian 2-form gauge theory by exploiting the superfield approach to BRST formalism. The antisymmetric tensor gauge field of the above theory was christened as the “notoph” (i.e. the opposite of “photon”) gauge field by Ogievetsky and Palubarinov way back in 1966–67. We briefly outline the problems involved in obtaining the absolute anticonimutativity of the (anti-) BRST transformations and their resolution within the framework of geometrical superfield approach to BRST formalism. One of the highlights of our results is the emergence of a Curci-Ferrari type of restriction in the context of 4D Abelian 2-form (notoph) gauge theory which renders the nilpotent (anti-) BRST symmetries of the theory to be absolutely anticommutative in nature.