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The World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement system is facing unprecedented challenges, following the United States (US) decision to block the appointment of all Appellate Body members. The US has justified its blocking tactic, already implemented since 2017 by raising several procedural and substantive concerns with the Appellate Body's failure to follow WTO rules. On 10 December 2019, the Appellate Body was forced to suspend its activities after the second terms of two of the remaining three members expired. While the WTO dispute settlement system continues to function at the panel stage, the Appellate Body is currently unable to review appeals because it lacks the minimum number of three members required to establish a division. In addition, the collapse of the Appellate Body means that any party to a dispute can block the adoption of a panel report by filing a notice to appeal which is likely to remain in limbo for an indefinite period. Numerous studies have discussed the Appellate Body crisis and its implications for the WTO dispute settlement system. Few, however, have critically analysed the validity of the concerns that the US has raised about the Appellate Body's work over the past few years. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to discuss and critically analyse these concerns to determine whether the Appellate Body has indeed strayed from its limited mandate. In addition, the research will provide recommendations on how to save the appellate stage and ensure that appeals are resolved while WTO members attempt to find permanent solutions to this unprecedented crisis.

The calculation of a consolidation settlement is an important problem encountered in the foundation of buildings. Due to need for simplicity engineers are mainly using the one dimensional theory of Terzaghi for calculations of consolidation settlements with time. Consolidation tests are still performed in most laboratories with the traditional oedometer cell. Although the results of the oedometer can provide relatively reliable results, they are not equally effective for the calculation of the rate of consolidation. This primarily because of the inability of the oedometer cell to obtain full saturation of the sample. To ensure full saturation, back pressure must be applied which is not possible for conventional oedometer cell. The alternative use of the triaxial cell to examine the consolidation behavior of soils is discussed here.

Over the last twenty years there has been a dramatic rise in subsidence claims for residential buildings. This has led to growing concern amongst insurance companies and the structural engineers who investigate these cases on their behalf. Their attention has begun to focus more on the engineering management of these cases. A review of the mechanism of subsidence damage to residential buildings and existing subsidence management procedures has shown that existing management procedures are often ad-hoc and uncoordinated, have been criticised for being inadequate, and have lead to solutions which have either been inappropriate or have failed to solve the problem. The review concludes that there is major scope for improving the decision-making process, by ensuring that it is based on a sound technical framework. This thesis describes an innovative approach to the engineering management of subsidence cases based on knowledge-based system (KBS) techniques. The Subsidence CAse Management System (SCAMS) is applicable to the multi-task domain and consists of three main components which address important facets of subsidence management. These are the diagnosis of a subsidence problem, the choice of an appropriate course of investigations, and the specification of effective remedial measures. SCAMS was developed using a KBS building shell- Kappa PC. The data structure adopted was object-oriented and incorporates production rules. The knowledge acquisition was based on multiple sources of knowledge using a variety of techniques. The system implementation was designed to result in a user-friendly system, and incorporates a highly graphical interface. Evaluation of the system was undertaken using test cases from industry. The system proved highly effective in all the tests and, in some cases, achieved more accurate results than the human expert. SCAMS represents a significant advance over existing approaches to the engmeenng management of subsidence cases. It provides many benefits to the construction industry including greater consistency in the evaluation of subsidence damage, improved quality of engineering judgement, reduced repair costs and specific guidance to -engineers for individual cases.

Due to high mortality encountered by marine fish larvae during their first weeks of life, small changes in the number of individuals surviving through this period can cause large fluctuations in year-class strength. Larval Red Drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) are dependent upon structured estuarine habitat to avoid predation. A study of post-settlement larval Red Drum distribution in a subtropical seagrass meadow in Mission-Aransas Estuary, Texas, USA indicates that larvae settle over approximately two months. Abundance of larger settled larvae was significantly different among sites. The areas of highest larval abundance varied temporally, indicating that the entire extent of the seagrass bed is utilized. Regression analysis of abiotic environmental factors did not explain why larvae were more abundant at particular sites. To characterize the structure and variability of the fish species assemblage that Red Drum encounter upon settlement, larvae and juveniles were captured in the seagrass meadow during weekly collections. Of the 32 fish species collected, seven represented 92% of the assemblage. Multivariate species analysis indicated that collections widely separated in time and space shared the lowest Bray-Curtis similarity. Because Red Drum settle over a relatively long period and co-occur at body sizes known to cause cannibalism under laboratory conditions, I tested combinations of small and large Red Drum larvae at various field-realistic densities and at different levels of seagrass habitat structure to determine potential for cannibalism. Artificial seagrass did not protect small (5 – 6 mm SL) larvae from cannibalism, but natural dense seagrass had a protective effect relative to edge habitat. The final component of this research examined the emergent impacts of a common predator pinfish (Lagodon rhomboides) on mortality and cannibalistic interactions between small and large Red Drum larvae. Both pinfish and large Red Drum larvae alone readily consumed small Red Drum in all seagrass habitat structures tested. However, the combined treatment of pinfish and large Red Drum together led to reduced mortality of small Red Drum. Predation can significantly affect Red Drum survival during the post-settlement period, and multiple predators may have a protective effect on the smallest settlers if predation pressure is re-directed towards a larger size class. / text

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The interface normal behavior between Ottawa sand and concrete for static and cyclic loading has been studied using Cyclic Multi Degree-of-Freedom test device. The static force controlled test for the interface showed exponential relation between normal stress and strain during initial loading, hyperbolic relation during unloading and linear relation during reloading. A series of cyclic force controlled interface tests are described for normal behavior and the interface behavior is found to be a function of the applied initial normal stress, the amplitude of the stress and the number of loading cycles. The reloading modulus is shown to increase with number of loading cycle. Also, a series of combined normal (force controlled) and shear (displacement controlled) tests are described in which the shear stress for given amplitude of shear displacement is found to increase as normal stress and number of loading cycles increases. The results of the laboratory tests for normal behavior are used to determine the parameters to describe the interface stress-strain response. The model is shown to describe the hysteresis behavior of the interface as a function of amplitude of normal stress and number of loading cycles. The model is used to predict the results of cyclic normal tests and combined normal and shear tests, and was found to yield satisfactory results. The interface model is implemented in a 2D nonlinear soil-structure interaction finite element procedure. The finite element procedure is verified with respect to simple problems for which close form solution or laboratory results are available. The response of the force controlled cyclic test and combined normal and shear test is then predicted using the FE procedure and reasonable results are obtained. A pier foundation subjected to base displacement is then analysed for different combinations of soil and interface behavior. Computer results are qualitatively compared with displacement and contact stresses and the effect of including the interface behavior is identified with respect to debonding and rebonding of the interface. The results of this research have provided understanding of the cyclic behavior of sand-concrete interface subjected to normal and combined normal and shear loading. The interface behavior has been represented by simple mathematical model for which parameters can be easily determined from static and cyclic tests. The model is also defined for general loading to incorporate debonding and rebonding and it is easy to implement into a FE procedure.

Although settlement patterns are a central topic of archaeological research, there is a paucity of general theory on the determinants of agrarian settlement. What passes for a theory of agrarian settlement in archaeology is a borrowed model which does not recognize the relationship between population density and agricultural intensity. This dissertation argues that the rules determining where farmers settle are inextricable from how they farm. Ethnohistoric and ethnoarchaeological data are used to investigate the relationship between agricultural change and the determinants of settlement location in the case of the Kofyar, a population of farmers colonizing a frontier area in the central Nigerian savanna. As they moved into an area with a low ratio of population to productive land, Kofyar agriculture was extensified in accord with the Boserup (1965) model. With potentially greater travel costs associated with domestic water than with farm plots, streams exerted a strong attraction to early settlements. With increasing land pressure, the attraction value of farmland eclipsed the attraction to water. Contrary to Boserup's theory that agricultural responses to land pressure cross-cut environments, analysis of settlement histories of over 1000 households shows that responses vary with soil type. Farmers on high-quality sandstone-derived soils tend to intensify cultivation, while farmers on inferior shale-derived and igneous-derived soils tend to abandon their farms when yields begin to decline. The location of Kofyar compounds with respect to each other is closely related to the labor demands of agricultural production. The restricted range of distances between residential compounds reflects the reliance on inter-household collaboration in agricultural production.

<p>The Government of Namibia has been responsible for facilitating the resettlement of destitute and landless people since its independence in 1990. The provision of resettlement is a very contentious issue in Namibia. The bulk of land is still in the hands of minority white communities and foreigners. It is against this background that the study examined the land reform process in Namibia. The objectives of the study was to investigate to what extent the land reform process has been successful in one of Namibia's regions, and what factors are relevant for success, and identify ways to improve the process / to examine the original government objective/policy and how/why it changed over time.</p>