This chapter sets out and explains the key principles and values of the UK constitution - and of constitutionalism more generally. It explains parliamentary sovereignty, the rule of law, democracy and the separation of powers. It provides contemporary examples of the application of these values and principles , including the impact of referendums and of the two groundbreaking Miller decisions - known as the Brexit and the prorogation cases.

The chapter analyses the different sources of UK constitutional law: statutes, case law, prerogative powers and constitutional conventions, in addition to rules and practices in the UK Parliament (including standing orders, the Cabinet Manual and the Ministerial Code. It provides a detailed account of constitutional statutes and developing ideas of the common law constitution, in addition to providing an up-to-date account of prerogative powers in the light of the recent Supreme Court case on prorogation.

This chapter provides a detailed account of the powers of the UK Government, both in relation to executive powers and the initiation and control over the enactment of primary legislation. In particular, it provides an up to date account of the impact of the two recent Miller decisions (the Brexit decision and the prorogation decision) , explaining their impact on the control over prerogative powers. It also explains the impact of the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011 on prerogative powers.

This chapter provides an up-to-date account of the evolving history of devolution in the UK. In particular, it explains the impact of the independence referendum in Scotland, the move to devomax and the possibility of a second independence referendum. It provides an up-to-date account of further devolution to Wales. It also provides an account of the failure of devolution in Northern Ireland from 2017-20, looking at the governance of Northern Ireland by civil servants. It also provides a new analysis of the impact of devolution on parliamentary sovereignty and the impact of Brexit on devolution.

This chapter provides an account of the protection of civil liberties and human rights in English law. This includes an account of the Human Rights Act 1998 and its relationship to decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. It also explains the interaction between the Human Rights Act 1998 and common law protections of fundamental rights. It then provides an evaluation of the laws on terrorism, freedom of expression and the right to protest.

In our galaxy, the existence of dust is revealed by the fact that dust grains absorb, scatter, polarize, and emit light. The interaction of dust grains with light depends on the size and shape of the grains, as well as on the index of refraction of the material making up the grains. Observations indicate that the mass of dust in our galaxy is about 1% the mass of interstellar gas. Most grains are either graphite or silicate, with a typical grain radius of ∼0.1 micron. The equilibrium temperature of dust grains is set by the balance between absorbing starlight and emitting thermal radiation; for interstellar grains, the equilibrium is at T ∼ 20 K. Cool stellar winds, like those of Mira variable stars, give rise to circumstellar dust grains. As these grains are spread through interstellar space, they can grow by accretion of atoms or be destroyed by sputtering or be vaporized by shock-heating.

This chapter introduces basic models for mixed-integer linear programming. It starts with multiple-choice constraints, and implications that are formulated as inequalities with 0-1 variables. Next, constraints with continuous variables are introduced, such as discontinuous domains and cost functions with fixed charges, which are formulated as linear mixed-integer constraints. Finally, the chapter closes by introducing classic OR problems, the assignment problem, facility location problem, knapsack problem, set covering problem and the traveling salesman problem, all of which are formulated as linear integer and mixed-integer linear programming models.

Over 90% of the baryonic (ordinary) matter in the universe takes the form of a low-density gas in the interstellar, circumgalactic, intracluster, and intergalactic medium. Because of the low density of interstellar gas, the discovery of the interstellar medium was a protracted process. In the interstellar medium, collisions between gas particles drive the gas toward kinetic equilibrium, at a temperature T that is determined by an equilibrium between heating and cooling processes. This temperature equilibrium can be stable or unstable. Different phases in the interstellar medium represent regions of stable equilibrium (or regions where instability grows very slowly with time).

This chapter addresses the decomposition of MILP optimization problems that involve complicating constraints. It is shown that, by dualizing the complicating constraints, one can derive the Lagrangean relaxation that yields a lower bound to the optimal solution. It is also shown that, by duplicating variables, one can dualize the corresponding equalities yielding the Lagrangean decomposition method that can predict stronger lower bounds than the Lagrangean relaxationn. The steps involved in this decomposition method are described, and can be exended to NLP and MINLP problems.